Duality
by WorthlessFandomFeelings
Summary: In a world ruled by sorcerers and kings, a plot to send unstable nations into a massive war is catalyzed by a princess and a slave. Elsanna, occasional evil!elsa, no incest, Elsa has powers, full warnings within.
1. Part 1: Chapter 1

**EDIT: Alright, christ, for fuck's sake, it's back. But it's not going anywhere soon. EiH and LC are my main focuses right now. Consider this story either abandoned or on extremely long hiatus. It likely won't start up again until next year.**

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><p>Under normal circumstances, Elsa would be standing to the immediate right of the king and queen, her seated and throned parents. Today, however, was the anniversary of her birth and so, for once, she was granted the mercy of a chair on which to sit at the head of the great expanse of the throne room. Though, still to the right of the king and queen.<p>

Unfortunately, as both a sorceress and princess, the event ended up being tremendous, and the various nobility attending had worn her down as each greeted her to present their gifts. Gold and silks and spices and jewels and scents had all made their way to her, an overwhelming plethora originating as far east and west as south and from all places in between. Most of it would likely end up being sold, partially to fund the coffers, and partially to fund the return favor of presenting gifts back to each attending nation during whatever silly events they planned to all keep in touch and suck up to one another. The vast majority of the gifts truly held no purpose or interest for the princess.

Nor, Elsa decided, would she put much effort into maintaining the illusion that they did. After all, she reasoned, what the fuck was a princess _really_ expected to do with all that frankincense? Though she did enjoy the excessively wealthy lifestyle, this was still an aspect of it that felt more put on than even she could stomach.

Elsa cast her gaze around the room. On rows of seats to the left and right of the large throne room sat countless nobles and royals. The various blue bloods, gathered to pay their respects and witness what really shouldn't have been that big a deal during such a primitive era for the world. Most of them were likely asleep, but since it was the thought that counted, they were left in peace.

To her left, past her more comfortably-throned parents, stood her older brother, Kristoff, who she cast furtive glances at more often than she was sure was inconspicuous in order to check on his mood. His had recently been a birthday with barely a fraction the pomp and circumstance, and yet there he smiled as though the world owed him nothing. Had Elsa not been embedded in the funk that had graced her the past few years, she was sure she'd feel sorry for the young man, even though it didn't help his case that he _was_ an asshole.

With a sigh she shifted her glance closer, to her parents, who were smiling at her with pride as they had been all evening. And of course they were proud.

She was their magical girl.

"How many more before this is over?" She asked her father.

"Just three more to go kid, you can hang on for ten minutes," the king chuckled.

She rolled her eyes, but maintained her composure as a familiar face made its way forward. "Prince Howard, a pleasure to see you again," she told the young man approaching her. He looked to be 17 years old by Elsa's estimation, owed largely to the fact that he was, actually, 17 years old, making Elsa his elder by just under a year.

He offered a deep bow before responding. "Your highness, the pleasure is all mine, and may I wish you a wonderful day." Hailing from the kingdom of Dupont, of which Elsa knew just enough about to confidently say that it was somewhere to the south west of Arendelle, the boy had a brightness to his eyes that had seared themselves in Elsa's memory ever since they had met as children. She always found she had a friendly fondness for him that completely failed to shine through her sour mood at that given moment.

He bowed again, to her father and mother, then shot a smile to Kristoff, mischievous now as it had been during the boys' occasional childhood misadventures, before returning his attention to Elsa.

"My gifts, unfortunately, were not permitted to be brought inside, however-"

"Is that because they're horses?" Elsa guessed.

"I didn't say that, your highness, merely that they could not be br-"

"So you brought me horses? I mean, I guess that's pretty cool..."

"Elsa, I believe I was in the middle of s-"

"But seriously Howard, we're situated on a fjord and surrounded by mountains, we barely even maintain our own stables for lack of things a horse can manage around here. Why horses?"

"Elsa," her mother warned, "be nice to the boy. It may be your birthday, but you _are_ speaking to a king."

Elsa's quirked an eyebrow, looking back from her mother to the boy. "A king? Since when?"

Howard winced slightly, more from memory than any offense taken at Elsa's dismissal of his gift and shortness with him, which was saintly on his part, before continuing somberly. "Father's illness was too much for him it seemed. Last week, as we cast off to make our journey here, we were caught up by messenger craft bearing the news. I am to be crowned upon my return."

Elsa turned to her mother triumphantly, "so not really a king yet, see?"

Again, the boy showed no sign of offense at her disregard of his tragedy and, light still gleaming in his eyes, spoke further, "with Alice by my side, however, I am sure I will make a fine king. She is my light and hope."

-Is this kid for real?- Elsa wondered to herself.

Elsa's parents continued the conversation, reassuring the boy. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she did genuinely hope he would be a good king. He was a nice boy, totally smitten with his new queen, which Elsa thought was cute in a sort of pathetic-but-admirable way. More importantly, however, trade boomed between the two nations, as trade had a habit of doing, and if the economy collapsed there Arendelle would lose a respectable portion of its barley imports.

All of this translated to less ale, and other than wine there was nothing Elsa loved more than ale.

When all was settled and Elsa begrudgingly stopped being a wet blanket long enough to thank Howard for the horses, which he admitted to bringing, she bid him farewell as a massive man she also recognized, a king of a far off land to the southeast, approached with a chain in hand. His muscles rippled, a remnant of his glory days in battle. Alongside her father, she recalled, fighting a rebellion in his land, the details of which she had ignored time and time again. A different time, and a different place. She watched the bulging muscles of the man before her intently, a vain attempt to derive some titillation from his figure.

_If you keep staring, maybe you'll even convince yourself._

Elsa gave a slight shake of her head as if to dislodge the thought from her mind, the voice inside it unwelcome and uncontrolled as always.

-Shut up- the voice in her head, the one she could control, retorted, hoping to stifle the invasive thoughts.

Elsa gave up on looking at the man, her blue eyes instead moving down the length of chain he carried, to the iron collar it ended in, wrapped around the neck of a girl pretty enough that Elsa was sure to sit and ogle her like a vegetable for the next few seconds.

Not one to disappoint the divine order of the world, Elsa indeed took to studying the young thing before her. Her head hung low, her smooth, red hair covering a face that Elsa got the sense would probably look fairly appeasing. Eyes traveling lower, because she really was that hopeless, Elsa tried not to linger at the attractively sized chest area of the girl. She tried very hard not to, for a full minute even.

When it finally dawned on her that she was staring for a length of time that went past the point where she could deny it to herself, she looked around wildly to make sure nobody important had noticed, blush forming on her cheeks.

Whatever, she rationalized. The girl was clearly hers, her gift, she could stare all she wanted. Make sure everything was in order.

_Or something_

Regardless, the audience in the room was still as absorbed in nothing as ever, the girl clasped in iron was still staring at the floor and trembling, and her father had distracted the other king by standing up and jovially bellowing recognition.

"Makin!" He had said, throwing his arms wide. The two men had embraced while Elsa's attention was elsewhere, their equal and abundant musculature making for an exquisitely awkward hug that Elsa would have enjoyed almost as much as drooling over young slave girls.

"How have the years treated you?" Her father asked of his old companion.

"Like shit, my friend," came the cheery response, "life in the southeast is one ass-crack full of sand after the other. How is it up here? I hear your winters are still more frigid than your women."

_This. Fucking. Guy._

Her father laughed his agreement, before turning to the gift the man had brought. "So a slave eh? That's a new one."

"I know, apparently you guys are too boring up here to make them for yourselves any more so I figured I'd shake things up a little. She's a little spirited, but she knows how to behave. Certainly a better toy than frankincense, if you'll let me toot my own horn a little. Honestly, what is a princess supposed to do with all that frankincense, that shit doesn't even taste good."

"I don't think you're actually supposed to ea-" Elsa started, but trailed off when she realized she was being ignored. To be fair, she wasn't even sure whether or not frankincense was edible anyway.

Agdar returned to his throne with a smile at his pleasant reunion, and turned to his daughter as Makin asked her, "So, what do you think of her?"

At that, Elsa did a terrible job of pretending to not be uncomfortable when she answered with, "she's nice...uh...what does she do?"

Makin did his best impression of not looking at Elsa like she was mentally deficient as he replied, "well, she's a slave so... Probably anything you want." He ended his sentence with a wink that made Elsa feel almost as stupid as she was beginning to suspect she was.

"But she's not specifically trained to do much I'm afraid. Picked her up off a raid of a German caravan trying to sneak far east through our land, probably would've sold her to the Kalmyks or who knows. Mostly I just kept her around for light lifting, had some concubines keep her pretty and sheltered while I figured out what to do with her. I'm a side-project kind of guy. I'm sure you'll find plenty of uses for her, though," Makin said through a grin.

To her far left, her brother chuckled, and Elsa decided then and there that birthdays, and really any events that involved being in public or near other people, were not her jam.

"Well," Elsa began carefully, "I'm sure I can put her to work moving frankincense to storage."

_Holy shit you're witty_

The young girl, who Elsa had decided was about two years younger than herself, had made no movements during the exchange. Save, of course, for her persistent quivering.

_She's kind of a wimp, huh?_

-Can you _please_ shut up? As a birthday present? For me?-

_Oh come on look at her she's shaking like a leaf. Nobody else here is shaking, she's the only one._

-I guess that is kinda true, what's with her?-

_Maybe you can order her to stop? Slaves are supposed to do whatever you want right? Hey, speaking of which-_

-Nope! Go back to shutting up-

Time had worn on, and Elsa said her thanks and farewells to Makin, before reclining back in her seat, happy that there was only one more gift to be given before they could retire to the feast.

The girl was lead to a corner by a nearby servant, where the other lavish presents waited. Had Elsa not known the value of a slave in her condition, she would have found the girl quite out of place amidst the finery. She made a mental note to have the iron collar removed, and to possibly find some less scruffy clothes for the her. Apparently adding nice clothes to the mix to pretty the girl up was not on Makin's agenda, which she honestly couldn't blame him for.

When it was finally time for the final guest, a lone man entered the hall from the door, late to the party, to stride up to the royals and shake her father's hand on approach. The hall had silenced as he walked past. There were no bows to the king, no signs of respect or deference from the man. He looked to be about forty, cloaked in a simple robe, and had short, but healthy looking brown hair that went well with his unnaturally perfect build and complexion.

Elsa sucked in a breath at her recognition of him.

She was in the presence of sorcery far more advanced than her own.

"Ansgar, good of you to make it," her father said, the weariness of his countless welcomes disappearing in the presence of this man, replaced by a checked excitement. "Elsa, this is Ansgar, whom I'm sure you've heard of."

"I have," she answered carefully. As with all sorcerers, Elsa included, Ansgar's name was known across kingdoms. He was regarded as one of the foremost experts on the mysterious forces of magic.

"I'm to understand you hail from the Southern Isles, is that right?" For the first time that day, Elsa's tone was formal and respectful.

"I did, once," he answered, his voice deep and soothing, "but now I flee them. King Amaury's use of me as his pet grew ruthless, and very much not to my taste, and so I find myself here instead."

Elsa quirked an eyebrow. "Just like that? I have never known a king to so easily release a sorcerer."

Ansgar smiled, looking up at her father. "I was made an offer I couldn't refuse, and my escape was...facilitated by your father. Amaury will be furious, of course, but-"

"But what can he do now," Elsa finished, nodding. It was a good play. Any nation's army could be made into a force to be reckoned with, with the right training and equipment, but a kingdom backed by a sorcerer was untouchable. The few dozen sorcerers in existence were coveted across the known world, snatched up by the powerful from all walks of life as soon as discovered, offered lives of comfort and excess in exchange for compliant service and dedication to their masters. With Ansgar switching sides, Amaury's kingdom would be ham-stringed and left incapable of retaliation on its own, leaving Arendelle, harmlessly, one sorcerer to the better.

The thought actually made Elsa a little giddy. At her birth, she had become the first and only sorceress to be born of royal blood, offering Arendelle the advantage that her loyalty to her nation was not open to the highest bidder, as was the case with all other sorcerers. Now, with Ansgar sworn to her father, Arendelle was the only nation with two sorcerers at its disposal.

Returning to the present, she heard Ansgar reply to her interruption with a, "precisely", before turning again to her father, expectantly.

"Ah, yes, Elsa," the king began, "in light of the situation we find ourselves in, having just made an enemy of the Southern Isles, I present to you both the necessity of your duty to the kingdom, but also my gift to you."

Elsa tilted her head in confusion, unsure of what was to come, until Ansgar looked to her and smiled. "I will be instructing you in the way of your magic, to further strengthen your grasp of the power you wield, and pave the way for the future glory of Arendelle."

Elsa stared at him, then looked to her father, noticing her mother and brother leaning over with intent smiles on their faces. Something occurred to her just then, that had not during her excited musings mere moments ago.

"You're giving me magic lessons?"

"Precisely."

"So that you can make me fight?"

The excited mood vanished from the room. Her father shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. "That may be part of it Elsa, but-"

"No," she interrupted, "I won't fight. I'm not getting myself killed in some stupid war."

"What? I don't want you to get killed Elsa, that is why I have arranged this training."

"So you admit it. You want me to fight to clean up the mess you've made here."

Her father sighed. "I had hoped you would be more excited at the opportunity you are being presented with, Elsa."

"What? The opportunity to be used like some sort of weapon? The opportunity to see battle? These things don't sound exciting to me."

Agdar had had enough. "The hour of your feast is upon us. We will discuss this later, in private. For now, will you at least look to the lessons as a way to further your control over your magic? Even if purely academical?"

Elsa stared hard at him, but nodded finally. With a heavy silence, they moved to the dining hall ahead of the sounds of guests rousing at the smells of cooked meats and fine sauces.

And when the great room was dark and empty and the sounds of feasting and laughter echoed around the castle, a small slave girl curled up in amidst a mountain of fine gifts began to weep softly.


	2. Chapter 2

For the entirety of the long journey north, Anna had been brimming with unfulfilled curiosity. Unfortunately, asking questions of the king was not her station, and so she was left to wonder where the ship was taking her and, more importantly, why she was being brought along with the king's personal entourage.

For a brief few days, she had pondered if perhaps the trip would involve a chance to rise above her position in life. Looking back, she correctly guessed that that particular folly was the result of her brief stint with seasickness.

Girls like her weren't meant for greatness.

While the voyage had initially been a breath of fresh air, free from the arid desert she lived in, Anna had come to hate the discomfort of sailing. Everything was soggy and cold, there was never enough water or food for her, or anyone really, but especially her, and the salt that permeated everything was worse than the sand from where she had called home the past decade. She found herself spending most of her time below deck, even though she had been given an uncharacteristic amount of freedom to roam the vessel.

When had they finally reached land she had found herself excited. She had no idea where she was, of course, but it looked to be a very wealthy land judging by the state of the cobblestone roads and well kept structures, and there wasn't a grain of sand in sight.

Then they put the slave collar on her and it started to dawn on her that her life had reached a threshold, and the period of innocence she had enjoyed was over. It was an especially fast, harsh realization. But nothing had prepared her for when she realized they were making their way towards the massive castle she that loomed over the city. She hadn't enjoyed being a slave in the desert palace, but she wanted to be a slave in another castle even less. She hadn't been pampered with Makin, but it had been comfortable. It had occurred to her before that the relative comfort she had lived in was likely a form of grooming. Making her pretty and obedient for some noble. Her hunch was being confirmed as they traveled on.

The fear in her had built the whole journey up to the castle, and when she was left in the stables to make her bedding for the night, it wasn't the discomfort that kept her awake. In the morning she had been taken to a room with soaps and scents and a bath that she was certain had been drawn from a glacial mountain spring, and was made to wash up until the watchful guard who had accompanied her deemed her presentable before instructing her to dress in peasant clothes and dragging her by her collar down hallways and through doors until she was presented to Makin. She waited with him in silence in his guest chambers as he discussed various affairs Anna had no interest in with a number of nobles who visited until, well into the evening, a servant came and beckoned them.

She had been afraid before, many times. Her life had been spent surrounded by those with power and tempers and the king's desire to have her flesh untarnished had only protected her so many times from the savagery of man. But she realized the next day, as she was lead down the impossibly large, unbelievably decadent throne room, surrounded by the stares of those with more power in this world than she could ever imagine, that she had never been truly terrified until now.

And yet, it was nothing compared to how she trembled when she saw the princess.

She had seen a sorcerer before, but from far up on a balcony where she was safe and his interest was not in her, or in violence of any kind. She had heard countless tales of their magic, of single men and women who could slaughter small armies with mere gestures and thoughts.

She had only taken a quick glance at the princess, but she knew immediately the power was in her. The king's concubines, always ready to part with stories of the men the king shared them with, had filled her imagination with their tales of sorcerers and magic.

They told her of how it changed the sorcerers it lived in. Extending their lives, prolonging their youth, causing them to grow tall, with strong limbs and beautiful faces and skin so flawless it sometimes even looked unnatural. It was when she saw the beautiful girl before her that she knew where she was, and who she was being given to.

Elsa, the ice mage, born directly into royalty. With a temper they said, and magic that made up for her lack of training in raw, possibly even unmatched, power. There were also rumors, even as far away as Anna had lived, that the young sorceress hid deviant appetites.

None of this had eased Anna's mind as she stood in front of the woman who was to be her owner and tried not to sob openly. Any wrong move on her part, any reason for the princess to decide she was unworthy, and she knew she could be killed with an errant thought. She stared hard at the floor in submission, trying to take herself somewhere happy.

She thought of when she was young, of the farm, of her parents, their faces ever blurry, half forgotten in her mind. She thought of warmth and comfort. Anything to make her stop trembling like a scared child.

But it wouldn't work, she knew. Because a scared child was exactly what she was.

After what seemed like an eternity of talking she hadn't listened to, she felt a tug from around her neck, and allowed herself to be lead to the side of the raised area on which the royals were situated, directly to the right of the princess, whose attention was mercifully elsewhere.

She was left there, to watch as the king who once owned her, who once represented her entire world even though he had almost never spoken to her, walked away, taking with him ten years of familiarity and comfort and the stirrings of what had begun to feel like home. And suddenly she was more alone than she could ever remember, and she felt sick and scared and stupid and worthless like she had when she had been brought to the palace in the desert, and she wanted to run after him and cry and scream and beg him to take her back with him to the warmth and comfort of silks and sands and sun.

But instead she was still, staring at his back as he strode off without a worry in the world, and then staring back at the ground.

Anna had remained standing, because she assumed, correctly, sitting was a privilege here, and slowly brought her gaze upwards from the floor, making sure no one was looking at her before finally risking turning her head all the way up and observing the new stranger, walking in.

Another sorcerer, she realized as he drew near, noting his perfect skin and sculpted jawline. Anna's eyes, by this point, probably couldn't get any wider, but she gave it her best shot. Had it not been for his reputation, his would have been a harder face to place. While Elsa's cold colored hair and even chillier gaze spoke of her powers, this man simply looked like the average, run of the mill Adonis. Of course, Anna already knew of Ansgar, who had been brought to the Southern Isles from his birthplace in northern parts unknown. Another god among men, standing mere strides away.

This time, she listened in on their discussion. The princess spoke, at first, exactly as she would have expected a princess to speak. Polite, curt, the distant hint of coldness to her voice. They spoke of Ansgar swearing allegiance to Arendelle. They spoke of him making Elsa even more powerful, which Anna sagged at. Just as she thought the day could not get worse.

The sound of Elsa snapping her displeasure at her father made Anna flinch, but when she heard what the princess was upset about, she found herself brightening up, if only slightly. Maybe the girl she had been given to wasn't the violent type after all. Anna tried not to get her hopes too high.

Suddenly, before she could catch the last few quips between the royal family, they were standing, moving through exits at the back of the throne room. Servants were ushering the nobles through side entrances, and with a muffled commotion the room emptied and Anna tried to figure out what she was supposed to do with herself now.

Was she to simply wait?

The loneliness returned harder than ever. She sat down on a pile of nearby golden objects, mostly jewelery, biting back tears. The excess in her little corner of the room was repulsive, and she found herself wondering what sort of princess needed this much finery? Could she ever wear all this jewelery in her life?

Anna thought all of this to stave off the thought that she was part of this corner. Part of these gifts. Just one more thing to have added to the collection. One more piece of crap the princess could hoard and disregard and abuse in her moods if she saw fit.

Finally, Anna could deny her tears no longer.

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><p>The feast was over, and the merrymaking had ended, and Elsa was comfortably seated in a smaller, homelier room, with her family, as they enjoyed their nightcaps and settled in to light discussion.<p>

"So a slave girl," her brother was saying with a grin, "what a gift, eh?"

Agdar chuckled, "Makin has always had a good sense of humor."

"A slave girl as a gift is supposed to be a joke now?" Elsa asked, the wine in her system and glass of brandy at her fingertips doing little to warm her mood. It also didn't stop her from catching the glances shared between her family members at her question.

With a sigh, her mother looked at Elsa, saying, "so what is it you plan to do with her?"

"What? I don't know. We don't usually do the whole slave thing here right? I'll probably just set her up with the servants. It's not like there's much of a difference."

"There's still a bit of a difference. The servants are mine, for starters," her father said, "and there are also limits to how much a servant can be mistreated in Arendelle that don't apply to imported slaves."

"But those rules only apply to lesser nobles," Kristoff cut in, "we don't play by those rules, so Elsa's not entirely wrong."

Agdar glowered at him. "That is true, and you certainly seem to have had your way with most of _my_ maids."

Kristoff grinned guiltily, but defended himself with, "there was no mistreatment involved, however. And I didn't see _you_ staking your claim on any of them."

"In_deed_," Idun's voice cut in from her seat closest to the fireplace, eyes glancing possessively to her husband before resting on her son. "However, your father makes a good point. The castle would run smoother if you turned your attentions outside it."

"Which I am already doing mother, I assure you," Kristoff said, draining his drink before continuing. "That thane, what's his name, brought a whole bunch of frankincense for Elsa, remember him?"

"Let me guess," Elsa muttered, "his youngest daughter awaits in your chambers?"

"Second. Second youngest, and I'm actually biding my time here because I can tell you now she's not sober enough to find my room on the first try."

Laughter belted out from Elsa's father at that, and Elsa turned red though she was unsure why. She sipped at her drink, the strong liquid feeling warm and reassuring burning in her gut.

"He'll be pissed about that," her father laughed, "he was saving her up to slink his way into some titles next month, if I recall."

"He'll get over it," Kristoff said, smiling along with his father.

"You are unbelievable," Elsa said to him. "Are your days truly filled with nothing but womanizing?"

Kristoff shrugged, offering no apologies. "I don't really have any sorcery to practice so it's just kingdom affairs and women for me."

"Be nice, Elsa," Idun chastised, for the countless time that day. "Maybe you'd find yourself lifted out of this funk you've been in if you went out and had your own fun."

Elsa spun around, "I don't think I need you prying into my mood, mother. I can't imagine it affects you so direly you'd feel the need to try and lecture me about going out and experiencing the joys of life, or whatever the hell you're getting at."

"Well, truth be told Elsa," her father said, leaning in, "it's not just us your temper affects."

"I am entirely unsure that I know what you mean," Elsa said, realizing too late that the drink was getting to her somewhat.

"Elsa," Kristoff said, moving to refill his glass, "your temper controls the weather. Not a whole lot, but still enough to be noticeable. You _have_ noticed, right?"

"What? How the fuck does that make any sense?" Elsa's patience was at an end. Maybe her parents were right, she was getting pretty pissed at the direction this conversation was taking.

"Have you considered that you're an ice wizard,?" He asked, knowing damn well how much Elsa despised the word "wizard", "and that magic just kind of does what it wants?"

"He's right Elsa," Idun said softly, "it has been far too cold this time of summer."

"Well so what? The people can manage a bit of a chill, it's not like it's snowing out. Nobody's gonna die because they have to wear their coats a little longer. I don't see why I should have to go out trying to find ways to cheer up just because it's nippy in the summer."

"True," her father now. "The people are not in danger, but many of the more sensitive crops are. I've had reports that this "bit of a chill", as you put it, is seriously threatening our melon supply from the east. I like my melons Elsa."

"As do I," Kristoff added, "and I certainly know you do Elsa. You're all kinds of a melon fan."

_Ha! Your brother is fucking great, you should spend more time arou-_

-I will cut my own head off just to get you out of it-

"We're a melon family Elsa," her mother picked up. "This is a matter of considerable importance. Summer is a time for melons, a summer without melons is like a birthday without presents."

"That sounds pretty damn tolerable to me," Elsa snapped.

"Elsa," her father again, "please understand that this is coming from a place of love and royal responsibility. We want what's best for you, and what's best for the people."

"This is an intervention, sis. We can't sit idly by while you do this do this to yourself. Nor can we, as protectors of the nation, allow you to deprive our people of good farming weather."

"Sweetie," her mother said, "for the good of the kingdom, you need to get laid."

Brandy exploded out of Elsa's nose.

"_What_?! What the _fuck_?!" She looked at them incredulously, eyes watering at the strong drink burning her sensitive nose. "You can't all be serious right now."

"Melons are no joking matter Elsa."

"You can all fuck right off is what! I can't believe you would badger me about something like this," her face was hotter than she could ever remember it being.

"Seriously?" Her brother asked. "What are you, twelve? Since when did you get so defensive about fucking?"

"I'm not defensive," she lied, "and we're not having this conversation!"

"He's right kid, you are making a pretty big deal out of this. It's not like there's no one out there who'd jump at the opportunity to fuck a princess, I can tell you that. Besides, you're a sorceress, it comes with the territory. I don't want people thinking my daughter is some kind of reclusive loser just because it's true. Go muster up some courage and jump someone. Please. For us."

"Fuck off dad, don't you _all_ gang up on me at once. And don't...don't _say_ that shit to me! You're my dad, it's weird."

"We've been ganged up on you since the conversation started," Idun pointed out, "and if it makes you uncomfortable to hear your father tell you you need to get some action, I can gladly take on the responsibility myself."

"The fuck you will. Fuck off, all of you," Elsa barked, standing up. "This conversation is over, good night."

She stormed off, shouting, "and thanks for the _great_ birthday," over her shoulder.

"Damn it bitch!" Her brother yelled after her, "I want my _melons_!"

* * *

><p>It had taken a few hours, but Anna had finally gathered the courage to leave her assigned corner. The room was dark and abandoned, and she figured it was probably not entirely planned to have her just standing around in the throne room alone. She found herself fairly puzzled as to why nobody had come to collect the abundance of riches that had stockpiled here, as though they didn't care if anyone were to steal in and...well...steal.<p>

But hers was not to question, so she walked down the hall to where the various and sundry nobility had filtered out, looking to find the most inconspicuous door out she could. The halls were dark and foreboding, and Anna had the continuous feeling that simply existing anywhere in the castle would be liable to get her in trouble with whoever caught her. "Skulking about," she imagined the accusation would be.

Briefly, her thoughts turned to fleeing, but she knew it would never be a viable possibility. She had no idea how to survive on her own, her memories of independent life too distant to recall anything beyond the green of grass and the comfort of warm arms. And she wouldn't dare incur the wrath of the guards, or the sorceress herself.

She had hoped, after a few minutes, that she could have run into a servant. Someone closer to her level of lowliness, who she could ask for some direction in regards to a place she could sleep. The stables came to mind, but she didn't even know where they were.

Somewhere, off in the distance, she heard raised voices, and made a point of taking a turn in the opposite direction to them at the next set of intersecting halls.

_This is ridiculous_ she thought to herself, _they completely forgot about you_

At the end of the hall she came to a set of stairs leading downwards. Generally, downwards into the depths of a dark, unfamiliar castle was the opposite of the direction she would want to go in, but she made exception for the tantalizing scent of food, which she had been denied all day.

She wondered if the privy would be located nearby until it occurred to her how stupid it would be to have a privy dug in near the kitchen. Or inside a castle at all really. Where _did_ the help shit around here, she wondered.

Heading down the stairs and carefully peeking around the door before fully opening it to make sure the room was empty, Anna wandered in. The kitchen was quite large, disappearing around a corner at the end, and for some reason still lit by torchlight.

Right away, Anna noticed a small basket with a bun in it left over from the earlier feast. There was only one bite taken out of it.

_Score!_

Casting a furtive glance around the room, praying to anyone who would listen that nobody would catch her and report what she was about to do to someone who could kick her ass for it, Anna grabbed the bun and wolfed it down. She then turned on the room, looking for more food. Bread was good and all, but not a true meal. She wondered if maybe there was some spare cabbage left untouched, and scanned the counter tops. Everything seemed at least moderately well cleaned and put away.

Her breath hitched when she spotted it. At the far end of the kitchen, near the corner, before the turn to the right.

_Mother. Fucking. Steak._

Anna's eyes widened. Did she dare? She'd never had food of that caliber before. She'd never even dreamed of it. It didn't even look like anyone had tried to eat it. Inching closer, she saw that there was still steam rising off it. It was still hot. A fresh, hot piece of juicy steak. There was no way she was allowed to eat a steak, she reasoned. Slave girls don't eat steak, that's just the way it is, she told herself. Quelling the hunger within her, she decided she was going to play it safe and go with the responsible choice of finding something else to eat, like carrots.

No she wasn't. Fuck that. She was gonna eat the fuck out of that steak.

She tiptoed down the room, not daring to make a sound in case the entire castle woke up to take her away from that beautiful piece of meat. She was drooling, _actually drooling_ like some addled town idiot, at the smell that reached her on approach. It was even on a plate, with a knife and fork nearby. A jolt of panic raced up Anna's spine at the realization that it might be the chef's late knight dinner. She looked around the corner carefully. The kitchen stretched on for a fair distance, opening up into a larger room. Just to her right was a well fitted, sealed door to a room which she suspected contained a vast array of frozen animal carcasses. The wall she clutched nearby was cool, confirming her suspicion. Otherwise, there was nothing of note that she saw. Nobody working, nobody lounging about. She was all alone.

Maybe she could eat the steak and run off really quickly, and that way if somebody did come for the steak, they wouldn't know it was her who'd devoured it.

It was her stomach thinking, but she had to admit her stomach made an excellent point. She furtively took the knife and fork in her hands, trembling as she cut a piece off the end. The knife practically glided through the steak as though it wasn't there at all.

_Oh shit this thing's tender_

Anna could not contain her excitement. She stabbed the piece she cut off with her fork, noting it was cooked rare, and then, slowly, put it in her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She had never had food like this. She had never even been aware that it was possible for anything to taste like this. She was actually at the point where she was confused as to what was happening in her mouth, having to remind herself to chew. Chewing brought out even more flavor from the steak, and Anna gave up on sanity on the spot.

When the piece was done, she knew the whole steak had to be hers. She was going to decimate this thing, she decided. She sawed off another piece, larger than the last, savoring it this time as she chewed it slowly, her eyes closed. She got another piece ready before she was done, so that she wouldn't have to wait in between bites. She didn't even care that she was hunched over the steak like some kind of deranged hyena.

This was heaven. This was bliss.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

Anna was only barely able to stop from pissing herself. She knew she should probably turn around, but nothing was really registering properly. A small part of her brain screamed at her to grab the rest of the steak in her mouth and book it, because panic is never complete without the call of the void.

"You've been here like, what? Five hours? And you're already after my midnight snack."

Anna was pretty sure some part of her brain was selectively blocking out her recognition of the voice for her own protection. There was a noise like liquid on glass, which seemed mundane and odd enough that she was able to focus on it and calm down just enough to slowly turn around.

The princess leaned against the frame of the doorway to the carcass freezer, one foot stuck out to hold the door open, with a bottle of white wine pressed to her lips, the condensation over the bottle indicating the room was used to chill more than just meat.

Anna's mouth lay agape, something she never thought actually happened to people in real life, but was happening to her now.

"Oh holy shit don't show me that, that's gross!" Princess Elsa's speech was slurred, but only slightly. Anna briefly wondered just how much experience royalty got with drinking by the time they reached princess Elsa's age. "No, seriously, chew and swallow. That's disgusting. If you're going to eat my steak, at least have the courtesy not to show me what it looks like in the process."

At her words, the full realization of what she had been caught doing, that she had been denying to properly come to terms with, finally came crashing down upon her mind. It occurred to her that she was probably about to die, and as if on cue, the princess rolled her eyes, started towards her, and the world went dark.

* * *

><p>Elsa watched the slave girl faint, her head knocking against the stone floor in what looked like a painful manner.<p>

"Fucking seriously?" She stared at the girl, who was emitting a gurgling sound as she unconsciously tried to breathe around the food in her mouth. Elsa gave a light kick to the back of her head, knocking the mulched steak loose onto the floor, and her slave's breathing returned to normal. Her brain was still trying to make full sense of what had happened through the soothing blanket of drunkenness coating her thoughts.

"What a stupid girl."

Gathering the plate, she wandered off to her room, where she screamed directions to her brother's room at a drunken, half naked highlander girl she found waiting on her bed, before settling in for the night with a sigh of contentment as she sunk into her blankets with her wine and meat. Later, as she closed her eyes, it vaguely occurred to her that she should probably have figured out what she was going to do with the slave girl, but the sentiment was postponed for sobriety and eventually she drifted off, belly full and mind sedated.


	3. Chapter 3

Anna's head felt like shit when she woke up to a kick in the ribs that made her ribs also feel like shit. Looking up she saw a large, muscular man in an apron that was covered in fresh blood far too early in the morning to be justified. He was also carrying a humongous knife, which completed his status as the second worst thing Anna had ever woken up to in her life.

Looking around, Anna slowly sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, trying to ignore the all too familiar searing pain of hunger, and looked around from her position on the kitchen floor. The kitchen was busy, with countless servants weaving expertly about, cutting and yelling and cooking. Anna stared until the butcher got tired of waiting and hauled her up by her arm.

"Hey!" She said, startled, spraying stray bits of dried steak from her mouth that it only just occurred to her were still there. One of them flicked against the man's face.

For the second time in less than twelve hours, Anna found herself face to face with her own mortality over chewed up steak. She made to apologize.

"Uuh..."

It was a shit apology.

The man slowly reached up, carefully picking the small, chewed piece of meat between a giant thumb and forefinger. For a second, Anna thought he was going to try and put it back on her, a gesture she was pretty sure she would just have to let happen, but instead he lay it down on the counter beside him. It ended up being far more threatening than she had imagined.

"Can you cook?" He asked with a voice like soft rolling thunder.

"I can cook whatever you want," Anna said desperately.

"Are you lying to me?"

"Yes."

"Can you chop vegetables?"

"In the technical sense, yes. I can't do that really fast chopping thing that I see some people do, and the slices probably won't come out even, but I can definitely use a knife to make whole vegetables into...smaller parts of..." she trailed off, dejected.

The man grunted, unimpressed. "Can you carry a bucket of guts out to the harbor?" He tried.

"I'm gonna go ahead and say 'no' for that one, I'm definitely _not_ an expert in that field," Anna tried back.

"Looks like you've found your niche, slave girl. Our last guy died just recently and we need a replacement. I'm putting you to work until the princess makes up her mind on what she wants to do with you."

"What do you mean 'makes up her mind', uh, exactly?"

The man shrugged. "Your hers, she's been ignoring you. Means you're fair game to put to work 'till she says otherwise, far as I've been told by the king."

"Wait, the king mentioned me?"

"Yeah he asked what was for breakfast, I offered fresh slave bitch, but he declined and we got to chatting. Now," he walked past her, Anna dodging to the side to avoid the truly abnormally large knife, and followed behind him. "Your job," he told her, as he arrived at a massive table with large mounds of meat already in the process of being sheared apart, "is to carry the offal to the harbor and dump it in."

He pointed towards a bucket. It was a large bucket. There was a _lot_ of offal. It stunk.

"Wow, this is the shittiest job in the castle isn't it?" Anna said, impressed.

"There's a guy who wipes the king's ass," the butcher offered in consolation. "He's gotta keep up with all the politics too." He took a glance at Anna's expression before clarifying, "he only wipes the king's ass when the king shits."

"That's not what I was giving the look for, but thanks anyways."

"My pleasure."

"So you mentioned your last bucket-guy died?"

"Yup."

"How'd that transpire, exactly?" Hoping the story of the offal disposer was maybe just leading up to some shitty pun.

"We're not sure. We sent him out to the harbor one night and when he didn't come back we went out and found him still on the docks. Though mostly he was in the bucket." Looks like she'd have to take it into her own hands.

"That sounds pretty aw-"

"Don't even fucking think about it."

Anna sighed. "You got any jobs that don't suck?" She tried, pleading with her eyes.

"You'll be fine, slave girl. Nobody's ever been simple enough to consider touching any of Elsa's toys. Now get to work."

Anna looked at the bucket. Fortunately, of the few memories she had of her father, one was that he was always encouraging her to build strength. When Anna found herself under Makin's roof, the behavior was further encouraged by the concubines. From them, Anna had learned of pushups, which she had proudly assumed would help her lift and punch things better. She wasn't wrong, but her pride had been somewhat shifted when the concubines finally told her that the point was to make her chest stand firmer. Still, between that and her daily jogs around the palace, Anna liked to think herself strong and athletic.

She picked up the bucket. It was way too heavy.

* * *

><p>Elsa's head felt like shit when she woke up to a hunger pang in her stomach that also felt like shit. One of the downsides of sorcery, she had found, was that sorcerers took humongous amounts of food to fuel their bodies. She would have hoped it would be the other way around, that magic could fuel her body and spare her from eating, but allegedly that was a nirvana that was only attainable in theory. In practice, magic rarely evolved past what came naturally to a person, growing exponentially in strength until adulthood.<p>

At eighteen, Elsa had now, more or less, finished her magical growth spurt. She would continue slowly growing in power, according to some theory, but study beyond that was pure conjecture for lack of subjects.

For all their extended lifespans, sorcerers tended to live brief lives. Theirs was an aggressive business.

Which all was about the extent of Elsa's knowledge of magic, something her father wanted to begin remedying today. She winced at the thought, her head would not be up to that discussion for another few hours.

She rose from her bed, her empty bottle clunking harmlessly to the carpet below. She absentmindedly rolled it across the room with her foot as she made her way to her wardrobe, downing one of the several glasses of water routinely left for her each morning.

After getting dressed, she went to her window, opening the curtain a sliver, against her better judgment, and gazing out upon the bright land of Arendelle. Squinting in the light, and ignoring the corkscrew of pain the sun sent through her head, she looked down towards the distant harbor. A small, orange blob was slowly shifting its way in that direction, with a bucket, and Elsa let out a small chuckle. They'd put her slave girl on offal duty.

Hilarious.

Though Elsa had hoped they'd fed her before she'd been sent off. She was bitter about the sliver of steak she'd been denied, but it had occurred to her that the girl hadn't really been fed in a while, beyond a bite of what should have been Elsa's steak, and that was probably a bad thing even for those without magic.

Not to mention, that was a four hour trip both ways on foot, probably double that time the first way if she kept up like she was with that bucket. Elsa made a mental note to mention to a servant to ensure that the girl be fed with the rest of the staff.

Immediately forgetting the mental note, Elsa wandered down to breakfast, happily tucking into the abundance of food before her. The servants had long grown used to her appetite, which would have been impossible for any person her size to manage.

Her mother and father were already at the long table, and shortly after they were joined by Kristoff, petite highlander girl in tow. Their family had always made it a custom to send Kristoff's guests off with breakfast, which typically meant breakfast was not an event solely for the family. Though it was good opportunity to meet all sorts of new people Elsa never would have met otherwise, and that she never did want to meet.

The girl looked to Elsa as she sat down beside Kristoff, stifling a giggle as Elsa did a terrible job of not blushing furiously at the memory of last night's mix up. "Sorry about last night, highness," she said with a polite smile on her face.

_ You should punch her in the throat_

Elsa's head twitched, before she looked up at the girl and muttered some bullshit about it being okay.

_Look at her smiling at you. I bet you could run over and punch her in her smug throat before she even knows what to do_.

"Elsa, parents, this is Cara," Kristoff said.

"Hi Cara," her parents droned in unison.

"Seriously, fuck you guys," he muttered.

"Kris, it's too early to be introduced to another of your tramps. Why can't you do this over lunch when nobody's nursing a hangover?" Elsa asked, rubbing her temples in frustration.

Kristoff looked confused. "Why would I keep her around that long?"

"Exactly."

"Well well, I can see _someone_ didn't take our advice to heart," her father teased.

Elsa groaned. Not this shit again. "You know, a normal dad would actually be happy that I'm still a virgin."

She was treated to mortified stares from around the table.

"You're a _virgin_?" Her mother was shocked.

"But...why? What have you been _doing_ these past five years?"

-_Five_ years? Jesus Kris-

Elsa buried her head in her hands. Her headache was not getting any better.

"I dunno, maybe somewhere along the line I figured my parents could do without me bringing some strange man to the table every morning to proudly display whoever's fucked me silly most recently?"

This brought more confused stares.

"Man?" Asked her father, suddenly taken aback.

"What? Yes, some strange man who-"

"But..." Kristoff interrupted, "why would you bring a _man_?"

Elsa's heart went into overdrive. She narrowed her eyes. "Just what are you implying?"

"Elsa...we know," her brother said gently, "it's okay, we've known for a while now."

"Known what? What's there to know?" Elsa couldn't believe how flustered she was feeling. This wasn't going right, this wasn't supposed to happen. They were wrong, she knew they were wrong.

_Yeah right_

Kristoff leaned in to study her face. "Jesus," he said, turning back to his parents. "I don't think she's bluffing. I think she genuinely doesn't know."

"Know _what_?!"

"Elsa, I'm pretty sure you're more into women than _I_ am," he said.

And there it was.

"What the fuck Kris?! Why would you say something like that to me?!"

"Because it's true?" Her father suggested.

"No it's..I'm not-not..." She couldn't finish it. Couldn't say it.

-_God dammit_-

"Elsa, sweetie," came her mother's soothing voice, "you're fucking gay."

Suddenly Kristoff snorted. "I can't believe you've been in the closet this whole time and you didn't even know! Holy shit you're useless," he started laughing in earnest. "God, and I thought you were just worried about how we were gonna react! No wonder you've never gotten any."

And now her father was chuckling and her mother was trying to hide a snicker, and Elsa's face was scorched red. She stood up from the table, storming off, too furious to even shout anything over her shoulder this time, their laughter following her out.

Because they were right. God dammit, of course they were right.

Agdar wiped a tear of mirth from his eye. "I can't believe we've had the privilege of doing that to her twice in now in such a short period of time," he said.

"We should probably tone it down for now though," Idun advised with reluctance.

"Yeah. Probably.."

"Uh...should I go?" Asked Cara.

* * *

><p>It had taken Anna over an hour and a half of dragging the bucket of offal before it had occurred to her that she could simply dump it in the middle of the empty hills of dead grass between the castle town and the harbor and it wouldn't make a fuck of difference. She had felt incredibly stupid, trudging back to the town, imagining how the kitchen staff were all having a laugh at her. And she would probably have to bring out another bucket as soon as she got back, which she was not looking forward to with how her muscles were already screaming at her and her vision was beginning to blur from the pangs of hunger she felt.<p>

By the time she was marching through one of the many servants' entrances, it was past midday, and she was about to collapse from exhaustion and hunger. How she thought she would ever have been able to make the walk to the harbor in the first place was beyond her. Delusion begot further delusion, it had seemed.

Anna convinced the chef to finally let her have some food, stale bread and some of the gristle left over from breakfast that had been fried up, which she stuffed down her gullet in seconds. After that, she was tasked to helping bring in the dishes from the royal family's lunch, from which, she learned to her joy, she was permitted to have bits of anything left over.

After everyone else had chosen the choice scraps, of course. Anna didn't mind too much though, she knew her place on the pecking order, and it was nothing new. She was just happy for more food.

And there was so much of it! Anna was astounded at the sheer volume of food that was prepared for the royal family, as plate after plate, though mostly empty, was returned from the dining hall. Upon asking, she was informed that, in addition to the company the prince typically kept each night that they made food for, the magical nature of the princess meant she required an incredible mass of food to maintain her body.

Anna wished she could have that much food at her disposal, regardless of whether she could even eat it all. She wished she could have a lot of things.

It was when Anna was presented with the second bucket of offal to bring out did she realize just how much she hated it here compared to the desert. The wave of homesickness for a place that was barely even a home was crashing over her, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up again and cry in a corner.

But she couldn't. She'd probably get beaten for it or something. Add another bruise to the three she was currently nursing. Not like in the desert, where she simply fetched things every so often for nobles or concubines, who had been at least pleasant, and full of stories. There was roughness there too, she knew, but it was almost always a world apart from her.

Here, it had become her world, in barely under a day, and she couldn't believe how crushing her loathing for this place was.

She dumped the bucket of offal in the moat, and wandered off through the town for two hours.

* * *

><p>Elsa had stormed through the castle to her room, in a haze of anger and confusion.<p>

_You're overreacting_

It was true, she was. It's not like being gay was especially damning beyond being considered a little deviant and wild. Gossip bait, at best.

And yet, here she was huffing about it like a child throwing a tantrum. She didn't _want_ to be gay, she just wanted to be...what?

_Please don't say normal, I will be so disappointed_

Elsa paced back and forth through her room, and truly did stir up a big fuss within herself that she resolved mostly with an angry burst of ice that harmlessly collided with a wall, before falling backwards onto her bed with a huff.

So she was gay.

_And horny. Don't forget that part._

Alright, gay and horny, and damn her family again for being right about that too. It wasn't fair that they got to know these things about Elsa before she could come to terms with them herself. It was an invasion of privacy of some sort, she was sure.

_No, no. Let's get back to the part where you work out how to get laid_

Elsa scrunched her eyes shut, trying to drown out the voice by silencing her head. Meditating, for all the good she knew it would do.

_Look, I know you don't like it, but while we're stuck being the same schizophrenic nutjob and you're the one at the wheel, you're gonna have to remember I have the same needs as you_

Elsa relented.

-What are you? Seriously?-

_Still you. Still the same answer as last time, maybe you're asking the wrong person? Or the wrong question._

-I'm asking Ansgar about you-

_What? You think maybe he can tear me out?_

-I think he can explain you-

_I know he can explain me_

Elsa lay in her bed, mulling over her thoughts from that morning until eventually she found herself drifting back to sleep. When she finally woke, a few hours later, her head hurt and her mouth tasted like shit, like it always did when she took naps, but she found herself in a somewhat better mood.

Elsa got up from her bed, her thoughts calmed and directed now. She headed off to find her father.

* * *

><p>She eventually found him in a meeting she happily intruded on. Her father encouraged her to be present for as much political discourse as she could stomach. She took her place beside Kristoff, who her father encouraged to be present all the time no matter what. Future kings have future duties. Though, that was never the whole story when it came to his preferential treatment of Elsa.<p>

Her father nodded at her entry, before returning to Makin and Ansgar. "To those of you just joining, we're discussing the Southern Isles. It seems Ansgar's arrival was followed shortly by a messenger, bringing word that Amaury is already searching for allies to retaliate."

"Retaliation? Against Arendelle? You accidentally started a war for my birthday?"

Elsa shut up at the glare aimed her way by her father, but it was Kristoff who spoke. "There was nothing accidental about this, Elsa," he said softly.

"Now," her father continued, "to arm against us, and our allies, the Southern Isles will need to call all its own allies, likely we will need to begin to do the same, and with haste."

"How could that plan ever work?" Elsa asked, "you're talking about an open war over the space of three continents. Even if it could be organized, it would be a disaster. Why would the Southern Isles ever consider that over a lost sorcerer?"

"Because they believe it will not play out that way," Makin said. "With a respectable army, and two sorcerers, Arendelle is now, without contest, in possession of the greatest military might in the civilized world by a landslide. Many of our allies may see that as a threat, and mobilize against us to bring balance to the world in a swift, one sided siege of Arendelle directly, which is what the Southern Isles are counting on. Fortunately, your father and I stand together on this to the bitter end, and we have already discussed Howard's allegiance. He will be especially critical in the months to come, as his father had just finished securing the allegiance of a newly found sorceress before he died. The other kingdoms will be more difficult, more suspicious that Arendelle may use its power to try to dominate. It is up to us to convince our neighbors otherwise, that ours is not only the winning side, but the benevolent side."

"We've done a fine job so far of botching the benevolence part with my escape, of course," Ansgar said, "but it's not irreparable."

"I'm more curious as to why you organized the escape in the first place, father," Kristoff said uneasily. "Especially now that it's clear you knew of the consequences. Battles over possession of a sorcerer I understand, but a war of this magnitude...? What are the three of you planning that isn't being revealed here?"

Agdar looked down upon his son and smiled proudly.

"Much," he said.

"For now," Ansgar cut in, "this meeting should be adjourned. I believe I have some business with the king and princess."

_That seemed like a fairly short meeting_

As the two others shuffled out, Elsa took her stance in a part of the room that brought her face to face with her father and Ansgar, who were standing side by side.

"I want to accept the training," she began, noting the smiles on both their faces, "however I have to know now what plans you have for my power. I want no part in ending innocent lives or pressing attacks on villages or waging war in open fields."

Agdar considered this.

"So, the option you present to me is that you would like to be trained, on the condition that you only use your power in defense of Arendelle, is that correct?" Her father was curt, and it made her suspicious.

"Yes, in addition to focusing primarily on studying and understanding my powers, I want the focus of furthering them, and their application, to be solely in the interest of defensive strategy." Elsa had planned that one out ahead of time. It sounded good, she had to admit.

Agdar smiled, "then you have a deal."

Just like that.

_Way too easy_

-I'll work it out when the time comes-

Ansgar clapped his hands together. "Excellent!" His enthusiasm was growing, "we will start immediately."

"What, like..right here right now?" Elsa asked, a little unnerved.

"No, good heavens no, there is a room next door I have had prepared. Come, follow me."

"So, still right now then..."

They walked out, her father bidding her farewell and good luck as he moved on to attend other matters.


	4. Chapter 4

The room, Elsa found, had been gutted and the usual polished, decorative stone floors had been crudely sanded down, seeming to provide extra grip as Elsa walked across them. It did not seem like a place of academic introspection and careful study. It seemed like a place of physical practice.

She turned on her new instructor, "so we're really diving right into the action part of this then, huh?"

"What is it you mean?" He asked.

"I dunno, I figured all the practicality of magic would have to wait until I was finished years and years of browsing through dusty tomes and careful study and magical equations or whatever. You're supposed to be among the foremost experts on magic, I assumed that's what you guys did all day."

Ansgar quirked a brow, "you seriously volunteered under the assumption that we'd be treating this like you were some intellectual in a place of learning? That seems a little boring, from what I know of you."

"Well, why wouldn't my study of magic involve the academics?"

"Because there really aren't many," Ansgar admitted. "Magic is still such a poorly understood phenomenon, most of what is academic is practical, and most of what is practical I could better teach you as we progress. At this point, our understanding of how to advance ones abilities falls down to the steady advancement of their age after adulthood, an absurd amount of repetitive practice, and me just kind of explaining to you what it feels like to do what I want you to do."

"So that's it? You're going to tell me how it _feels_ to be good at magic?"

"It's not really an exact science, Elsa."

"And you're not just telling me this because father wants me turned into a weapon at his earliest convenience?"

"No, but I'm sure that's the other half of the reason."

"Well, as long as we're being honest about it, I suppose."

"Good, since that's all settled, let's start by getting a better sense of how much power you have. Create for me a small globe of ice in your hands."

Elsa produced one with ease, forming out of the air and landing in her palm with a reassuring weight. The task was far from difficult, but she was sure this was leading somewhere productive so she kept her mouth shut.

"Excellent. Well formed too, I see, though finesse we will work on later regardless. Now, you have heard of my kind of magic before, correct?"

"You can suppress magic around you," Elsa quoted. It was a bizarre talent, as far as magic went. Almost anti-magic. But nonetheless, it was widely known knowledge. There we no secrets for sorcerers.

As Elsa had found out from her family.

"Precisely. I am going to slowly raise the intensity of my suppression field, and I want you to maintain the globe of ice for as long as you can. Do not worry that it will eventually fail. Normal magic is not known to be able to combat against suppression magic, more as a matter of logistics than mere brute force. Now, prepare yourself."

Elsa nodded, pouring more of her magic into the globe in preparation.

Then the world felt as though it had muted slightly, as though something that had always been with her was being dulled and dragged away. It was sudden and uncomfortable. With a gasp, Elsa jumped back, dropping her ice ball, which immediately burst into vapour.

"It is unsettling, isn't it?" He asked, Elsa nodding in response. She had definitely not liked the feeling. It was nails against a chalkboard for her very soul.

"Usually when I create ice, I can stop pouring magic into it and it will still stay around, but this ice dissipated."

"That is because it was still held together by your magic, which faltered under my field the second you stopped supporting it." Elsa had suspected as much. "We shall try again," Ansgar continued.

This time, Elsa was prepared for the feeling, gritting her teeth as she felt her magic dull inside her. It was slow, as Ansgar had promised it would be, and for the first minute or so she was able to keep the ice together with minimal effort.

It quickly began to get more difficult as her instructor increased the intensity of his own magic, and she was putting more and more magic into the globe in her hands, feeling it begin to weaken, feeling its desire to burst back into the vapour she had pulled from the air to create it. It was, of course, also possible for her to create ice from nothingness at all, but that took more power than simply drawing in water and freezing it.

Eventually, she could withstand it no longer, and the ice burst again into vapour that dissipated quickly.

"Impressive," Ansgar told her, with a smile.

"Oh yeah? Did I hold on the longest you've ever seen anyone hold on?" She asked jokingly.

"Not even close." Elsa looked a little bummed nonetheless, so he continued, "but for someone at the cusp of adulthood, possibly not even at your adolescent peak, and with no training, you held on far longer than anyone I've seen."

Elsa's grin returned, finding herself brimming with excitement. She had been unaware of how good it might feel to know she was the best, or at least that she had a shot at it.

_I could have held on longer_

-Oh yes, thanks for the reminder-

"Ansgar, do you ever hear like...a voice? In your head?"

Ansgar gave her a reproachful look. Elsa quickly continued, "I mean, one that feels almost like it...gets louder when you're angry or really sad or when you use your magic?" She tried her best not to sound as crazy as she ended up sounding.

"The whispers, yes," he responded thoughtfully, "most sorcerers hear them. Many have spent their lives hunting down the meanings of them, trying to make them louder. They suspect they are magic incarnate, whispering arcane truths just loud enough to be heard, just quiet enough to be indecipherable. But that you suggest yours get louder...have you ever heard anything with any clarity?"

"What? Okay I think we might be talking about two totally different things here, my voice isn't a whisper. I mean, it's not like a shout usually, it's generally a respectable indoor volume and I can hear everything it says just damn fine, unfortunately."

"But you have no control over this voice? And it is one voice you hear?"

"Yeah, like I'm not one of those weirdos that hears lots of voices that tell me to do crazy shit or anything. I mean, it tells me to do crazy shit, but I don't think it really expects me to beyond just kind of hoping I'll do it."

"If you are being honest with me, that is phenomenal. Revolutionary even." He didn't sound terribly excited.

"You don't sound terribly excited."

Ansgar shrugged. "In a field as mysterious as ours, revolutions happen daily. You could end up being the most powerful sorceress in the world, some street urchin may discover he can grant immortality on a whim, a king may find he can turn lead to gold, nobody would really be that surprised by this point. So, tell me of this voice."

"There's not really much. She's a huge bitch, she mainly just makes fun of me like...all the time. Also, like I said, she encourages me to do violent stuff sometimes. This morning she wanted me to punch a girl in the throat. She's kind of crude and inappropriate."

Elsa left out the more lascivious suggestions the voice in her mind had offered her. Those she would keep to herself.

Ansgar looked a little disappointed. "I admit, I was definitely hoping for those arcane truths."

"She tells me a lot of uncomfortable truths, is that close?"

"You are perfectly free to keep those to yourself. You say she - the voice is a she? - gets louder with your magic,? In what way?"

"Yeah she's a she. She thinks with my voice. And I don't know...sometimes it feels like I could use more power than I know I have but...suddenly she's there and I can feel her becoming...more of me, you know?"

"I actually do not know, as well you know."

"And there are times when she talks about how we share my head and how I'm in control, but it's as though her being in control is...I don't know...something that could happen? That she wants to happen? Just now, when you tested my power, she told me she could have done better. And I think...I'm pretty sure she could have, if I let her."

Ansgar pondered this. "It is thought that the voices are part of what connects us to our magic, but that in a way, how our magic manifests is an extension of ourselves. It is possible that you may be conflicted with a part of yourself you are uncomfortable with, only to have that aspect given voice by your magic."

_See? I told you he'd figure it out_

"If that is the case, you must consider carefully if that part of you is able to bear the responsibility of power alongside you. If we continue your training, your magic, and its voice, may only grow louder and stronger. Do you think you will be able to keep yourself in check? All of you?

Elsa didn't even hesitate, "yeah I'm fine."

"Wonderful."

* * *

><p>Anna decided northern towns sucked. The bitter chill in the air – in the middle of summer no less – was doing little to quell the general stench of shit that ran through the gutters of the streets, and what she had once thought was a richly paved town quickly degenerated into muck paths along the less fortunate outskirts. Everywhere she went, the people seemed shifty, closed off and suspicious of everything. They were all frail, though that came as no surprise to her; the lowest of the low were frail everywhere.<p>

Except her of course. A decade of carefully chosen food, exercise and all manner of soaps and oils kept her skin clean and her body fit.

Pretty, she had had been told some time ago. That's all she had ever been meant to be. Something to be looked at.

Feeling the air begin to grow even colder, Anna made her way back to the castle. It wasn't easy to get lost when the giant towers loomed, visible from all points, and she found herself back well before she probably would have been expected. She decided to do some exploring of the castle, figuring if she steered clear of the kitchen area then none of the servants would recognize her and she wouldn't be scolded for being idle. It was a lot easier to have this kind of cavalier mentality when she wasn't surrounded by the oppressive weight of the darkness during the nights.

To her surprise, she found a small garden maintained outdoors in a closed off part of the castle. She sat on a bench there, hoping that the space wasn't reserved for royal bottoms only, and allowed herself to relax and forget that she was slacking off majorly. The garden was very serene, and tended quite well.

She supposed a well tended garden would have servants coming out to actually tend to it soon, but she decided to risk a few more minutes here anyways.

Eventually, the muffled sound of something shattering took her away from her thoughts. Looking around, Anna saw nothing immediately threatening in the area, and began weighing the pros and cons of going to go see what it was that caused the disturbance.

Curiosity got the better of her, as it had been doing all day it seemed, and she walked around a corner of the garden towards the noise.

There was another, smaller garden area here. Overlooking it was a wide window into a room. Anna peered inside as she grew closer, trying to make out the two figures inside. With a quiet yelp, and a jump back, she realized it was the princess and the other sorcerer she had seen at the gifting ceremony.

_Shit! Of all the luck_

They were standing near a wall, Anna noticed shards of broken ice were scattered about the room. Something magical was about to happen, and Anna had no interest in being nearby when it did. She was about to turn and hurry away before she was spotted, automatically assuming she must have been doing _something_ wrong by being an audience to their meeting, when the princess turned to look directly into her eyes, and smiled. A thick sheen of cold, hard ice formed over princess Elsa's forearm, rising up to cover her fist like a jagged glove with a sharply tapered end.

_Oh fuck_

Elsa turned and swung a punch at the wall beside with her fist, and both the glove and mortar bust into shards that sprayed across the room. Anna could hear the crack from where she stood frozen in place in fear. Her legs unglued themselves.

She turned and ran and did not stop running until she was safely back in the kitchen.

* * *

><p>"You're a damn showoff is what," Ansgar told her, surveying the crater in the wall with satisfaction.<p>

"I think she got the wrong impression," Elsa said, a little disappointed, but not enough to sour her excitement. "She really is a skittish little creature, isn't she?"

"Your slave girl? Yes, I agree. It's almost cute in a way though, don't you think?"

Elsa had not thought of it like that, and now she just knew she was going to have trouble not thinking about it.

_Because you're _gay! Came the friendly reminder. She really hadn't gotten a chance to stop being reminded of that today.

"Mmh," she replied, before forming more ice around her fist. She had been happy with the progress they had made their first day, especially the punching trick. She hadn't thought of it before. She studied her arm now, buried in ice. She would work on refining the shape of the ice to something more defined, more fitting, although the actual shape of a fist seemed kind of stupid. Maybe a gauntlet.

At first it had worried her how quickly she began to show interest in the combative element of her powers, but she shrugged it off. It was what she was here for, after all.

"We have worked on formations of ice that could be useful, but I would like to end the day on a more practical note in terms of general hand to hand combat," Ansgar now told her.

Elsa didn't like where this was going.

"For starters, Elsa, have you ever been in a fight?"

"Sure I have."

"A physical one. Particularly, the non-magic variety."

"Ah...no. No I'm pretty sure that's not part of my fighting idiom as a princess."

"Well, I'm afraid it is going to have to start to be. Has anybody ever punched you in the face?"

"I'm not sure I like where this is headed."

"You're going to have to experience it to get used to it. If you are involved in combat, it's a pretty sure bet that there is going to be somebody punching you in the face."

"And you just happen to know this from experience?"

"I do, I have been punched in the face many times. I can tell you, as one of the leading authorities on the matter of being frequently punched in the face, none of the times you will be punched in the face will be enjoyable."

"Well, then it sounds like there's no better time to start getting punched in the face than the future," Elsa said, hoping to move onto something more enjoyable, like making popsicles or ice daggers.

"You're going to have to commit to this if you want to actually be of any use should your father's enemies lay siege to the kingdom," he told her. "This is not something you can simply avoid in favor of learning only the fun stuff."

"I bet you half my birthday presents that you're wrong and I can get by just fine without learning how to beat people up with my bare hands."

"Really? And how would you fight an opponent like me, Elsa? On a whim I can turn off your magic, and what does that leave you? A scared, weak little princess, who would be torn apart in a second in a real fight."

"Well, it's lucky you're on my side then."

"There are several others like me, Elsa. One of them, a man by the name of Raphael, newly discovered having fled from Dupont, moves to swear himself to an ally of the Southern Isles, even now. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to avoid a confrontation with him."

"If his magic is just turning off other magic, what significance does he hold against an armed, skilled opponent? Could a soldier not just march up and slaughter him?"

"First, because his magic is not just suppression. He is something of a jack of all trades, master of none."

"He can do _all_ forms of magic?"

"He has the ability to suppress magic in a field, like me, though much weaker. He is also a healer, and can rapidly bring his body back to a healthy state from all but the most brutal of damage. Finally, he is an energy caster, able to fire bolts of raw power that can melt through steel and flesh. His natural ability to dip into multiple forms of magic is baffling, and extremely rare."

"See, that's a jack of three trades, not even close to all of them. And besides, if he's busy stifling magic, he can't use his own magic to heal himself or throw energy, right?"

"Unfortunately that is not the case. He is able to use his own magic in his own suppression field, and would be able to heal just fine in a fight. The bright side is I doubt he is anywhere near powerful enough to be able to keep up a suppression field while throwing energy, but throwing energy takes a mere second to do. He could flicker the field on and off with barely any time for a sorcerer to react.

"So to put it simply: no. He will not be a case of some mortal simply wandering up and running him through. Likely, he will be given cursory combative training, though kept away from weapons as most sorcerers are."

"Why would a sorcerer be left unarmed?" Elsa asked.

"When we're brought in as pets for royalty, we are given a unique opportunity for regicide that, for many, is hard to pass up. All it one take for a sorcerer to rule a kingdom once in the comfort of a castle is to take the crown for himself and sit upon the throne. Who could challenge him? Distancing us from weapons and armor helps keep us vulnerable, complicates the dynamics of killing a king. Keeping a sorcerer's wrath pointed in the right direction is an intricate challenge. Our job in the arena of combat is to support the melee with magic while soldiers defend us with their steel and their lives. There is no need for us to carry weapons if all parties in a fight do their job well, and so no need to put a king at risk. You, obviously, being the exception, as your loyalty to your father is somewhat more...sturdy."

Elsa's head was spinning. "Okay, but that aside, all this strategy and study can't possibly be necessary for us to take down just _one_ sorcerer, can it? Do I have to learn this much about _every_ sorcerer I'm liable to come across?"

"We are a notoriously sturdy breed of human Elsa. Even innately, even while our powers are suppressed, our bodies are stronger and healthier than other people's. We gain muscle faster, handle pain better, we recover from injury quicker. We have stronger bones and, some say, even stronger wills to live. We hold on to life where others would have been crushed by far less, and it would cost all but the last few men of a sizable army to fell a well trained sorcerer. It is no small feat, and has been compared to the slaying of dragons, like in the fairytales of old."

"And yet all it takes is a sword through the head to fell us, just like any other human."

"Dragons supposedly died to a sword through the head. Brains are fickle like that, there's no healing yourself when you can't form the thoughts to do so."

"Dragons had scales, armored skin."

"So armor your skin, Elsa."

She snorted, trying her best to summon a helmet of ice around her head. It looked stupid and she dissipated it while Ansgar laughed.

"You say we're hard to kill, but if that is the case then why are their no old sorcerers? We have no evidence to suggest a single magic user has ever come close to a normal lifespan, let alone the lengthened lives we have the potential to lead."

"Well, again, challenge or no, ours is an aggressive lifestyle. No known sorcerer for as far back as history can detail has been spared familiarity with the rage of war. By the way," he said, changing the subject, "you haven't gotten out of the final part of today's lesson, despite your attempts at distracting me."

-Crap-

"And how do you propose to prepare me for the feeling of physical pain? What, are you going to punch me in the face so that I know what it feels like?

Ansgar looked surprised. "Yes," he said, "how did you guess?"

"Oh fuck no, I'm not getting punched in the face."

"The side of your head, more accurately, I'm not going to break anything, it's just going to sting and jar your head so you know what it feels like and how to fight through it. You're a sorceress, you'll pick up on it faster than others."

"Getting used to punches in the face faster than normal is seriously one of my innate magical abilities?"

"I have no idea," Ansgar admitted, "but imagine this rare opportunity we have to find out!"

"Does this seriously have to happen?"

"Think of it as an opportunity to explore your wild side after being cooped up in your boring princess life for so long."

"My princess life is just fine as it is, thank you very much."

"No it's not Elsa, you haven't even gotten laid in God knows how long. You are one of the most miserable people I have ever met. Have some _fun_ for once."

"Okay, does _everyone_ on Earth know about my sex life?"

"No secrets for sorcerers. And what sex life? Now, prepare yourself."

"I get to punch you back after this, right?"

"Don't be ridiculous Elsa, why would I ever agree to be punched in the face?"

"Ugh, fine, one punch."

"Good, I won't hit you too hard."

"Yeah whatever, I'm ready," Elsa growled, despite not being ready in the slightest. She was shaking and nervous. She _really _didn't want to experience this, she realized.

"You're definitely not ready."

"You're right, I'm not."

"I'll count down from three?"

"Why the fuck would you do that?! Just punch me!"

"Three."

"Oh for fuck's sake!"

"Two."

Elsa closed her eyes, trying to stop her heartbeat from going terminal.

"One."

Everything went black.

Ansgar slowly lowered his unswung arm as he watched the girl faint in front of him.

"Fucking seriously?"

* * *

><p>Elsa nursed the goose egg that had grown on the back of her had from her collision with the floor as she plowed through her dinner.<p>

-What a fucking embarrassment- she thought to herself as she drained her glass of wine in one go and made to refill it.

The lessons had otherwise gone well, however, and somewhere in the back of her mind she was excited to ponder all she had learned, and all the potential she felt brimming within herself. More than she suspected Ansgar knew. More than she herself knew.

Unfortunately, while that was at the back of her mind, the front of her mind preoccupied her constantly with thoughts of the slave girl's pretty face, staring at her from the garden window. Ansgar had been right, even in the grips of obvious terror she was adorable. Then again, Elsa hadn't actually seen her in the grips of anything else.

Maybe she could remedy that.

She squinted her eyes shut at the thought, trying to keep the warmth building up inside her at bay. Ever since her family had so rudely forced her to identify and face the reality of her feelings, it had been more and more difficult for her to contain them.

And why should she, she had earlier reasoned? She was royalty after all, was it not her prerogative to go forth and enjoy life to all its excesses? But the thought of approaching someone and leading up to such a proposition was...

Well it was terrifying, to say the least. Elsa had never been rejected before, but it was completely for lack of trying, and the prospect was new and frightful.

What a pity, she mused as she neared the bottom of her glass for the countless time that evening. Just the day before, there had been an abundance of young women who, now that she recalled, had been making obvious amorous advances on her all through the night. A night she could have spent drunk and happy, with someone else doing all the approaching and taking all the risks of a proposition for her. A night she could have spent with someone else.

But now most of her guests had begun returning home, and the few that hadn't mostly stayed within the apartments provided, propriety dictating the royal family not be disturbed further than what was called for by the event they had come to. Elsa had initially been thrilled at the prospect of being left alone, but now...

She finished her glass. Normally, the invasive words in her head would be berating her nonstop, but now the wine in her belly and the infernal heat just below that was blurring its influence, like it did when she was especially emotional in one way or the other, it's voice devolving to a growl or a hum or, in this case, a panicked, pleading whine that permeated her being.

She was really desperate, she realized.

She was also very, very drunk. More so than she had intended, finding herself at the tipping point just after excessively slurred speech but just before the room began to spin.

Elsa smiled happily, a great and terrible plan forming in her mind as she excused herself from the table, and took her bottle of wine with her, sipping it happily as she meandered haphazardly through the halls, her confidence growing.

The slave girl, she decided. Waves of drunken, repressed desire crashed over the princess. Something about the girl suddenly brought out a possessive, ugly desire that Elsa now wanted only to foster and stoke the flames of. The slave girl would do, she thought, stumbling towards the kitchen where, quite conveniently, both her food and woman would be awaiting. She would do nicely. She was pretty, she was the only person in the castle who actually seemed to act genuinely subservient to Elsa.

But most importantly, she was _hers_.

* * *

><p>Kristoff watched her sister wander off towards the kitchen, bottle in tow, with a look of concern on his face.<p>

"I get the sense this is going to be entirely our fault," he said sadly.

His father shrugged, going back to his meal.

"Well, what else are slave girls good for?"

* * *

><p><strong>This does it for the stuff I had prepared somewhat in advance. Next chapter'll be up in a week or whatever.<br>**


	5. Chapter 5

**So against my better judgement, at the behest of a reviewer and a fifth of whiskey no less, I updated earlier than planned. This means I have conceded that, yes, I did have this chapter mostly finished before even posting the last two, making my previous statement regarding the last chapter being all I would have for a week a simple, boldfaced fucking lie that I feel no shame over. More importantly, with the exception of the 10 thousand word fight scene I wrote to initially base this story around (that's coming way later) there is, genuinely this time, no other content pre-written for it. So for real, this is where it will probably slow down.**

* * *

><p>Anna had been instructed to wipe off the counter tops from the butcher's island, which meant soaking up absurd amounts of blood with a rag that had no potential for soaking up blood whatsoever, before trying to squeeze the largely incompressible cloth into a bucket that was mostly full of blood already. The rest of the staff busied themselves with closing up the kitchen for the night around her as she continued making no progress whatsoever for what had almost been a good hour now. Her arms felt like they were about to fall off, and she was hungry again, which wasn't helped by the delicious scents coming from the kitchen as Elsa's midnight snack was prepared.<p>

Anna was seriously considering trying to steal it again when the door behind her slammed open. Whirling around she found the princess holding a mostly empty bottle of wine and staring intently at her for what was now the second time this seemed to have happened. She looked distinctly more drunk this time.

_Does she just have some sort of sixth sense about her precious fucking steaks?_ Anna wondered.

But then again, Anna conceded, if she herself regularly got to eat that well, she probably would develop such a sense herself.

While the hustle and bustle in the kitchen didn't cease, most of the conversation did. Nobody looked at the princess, and there were no bows or other gestures of respect. Apparently the princess wandering in for her food was not an uncommon occurrence.

Or it could have just been that nobody wanted to deal with drunken royalty. Much less Anna, who was now staring back like a spooked deer. Some reasonable part of her mind tried suggesting that looking the king's daughter directly in the eyes was probably a sign of disrespect or a challenge or something, but Anna wasn't in the business of reason at that moment.

Elsa stumbled in, gaze still fixed on Anna, and slurred out, "you. Girl...hey," the last word spoken like she had tried to put some warmth into it but hadn't quite ever known what that was supposed to entail.

Anna didn't respond, and made an effort to turn invisible. When that predictably failed to work, she settled with leaning a little further back against the counter while the hot – and she really was, Anna noted in spite of herself – mess in front of her weaved her way closer, until she was very much upon Anna.

The girl with the platinum blond hair opened her mouth with a sloppy smile, before her facial features shifted and she said, "you smell like shit."

At that, she fell forward onto Anna and began snoring, her bottle clinking to the floor.

"Fucking seriously?" A nearby dishwasher muttered.

Anna tried not to panic.

"Okay, I'm trying not to panic here but her face is right in my boobs." Said panic was seeping into her voice as Anna spoke to the room in general, which she found was now staring at her intently.

"You're also blushing furiously, which, by my guess, makes you one lucky girl," chided the butcher who had woken her up that morning.

"Yeah, way to go get 'em, slave girl," a voice joined in.

_Dammit are there no such things as closets in Arendelle?_

"Alright, fine, you got me, she's hot, I admit it, congratulations everyone, you solved the mystery! I'm into hot chicks and she's definitely one of them. Good job all around. She's also _passed out in my boobs_."

"We noticed the first time, slave girl. Nobody here didn't notice, believe us, we are the men for the job if you were lookin' for anyone to be payin' attention right now."

She rolled her eyes, "no seriously guys, I'm full on freaking out here, even if it's just on the inside. Can someone please tell me what to do?!"

"Well, generally you'd start with dinner and wine and take it from there, so all things considered-"

"Please!" Desperation was coloring her voice now.

The butcher shrugged, looking from her to the other staff, and back again. "Have you considered taking her to bed?"

"Can _one_ person _please_ give me an answer they didn't pull _straight _from their own dicks?!" She bellowed.

"That wasn't a lewd suggestion, slave girl. The princess needs to return to her chambers to sleep it off."

"Oh..."

"Yeah. Bit of foot-in-mouth there, eh? Bet you're regretting that little outburst now, aren't you?"

"Whatever, just help me-oh!" Anna jumped startled as the princess raised her head slightly, lids raising partway to stare directly down Anna shirt.

"_Uuh...huh...am I in heaven?"_ She asked? From Anna's angle, her pupils looked massive.

"Yes, just, uuh... Go back to sleep?" Anna said weakly, at both the possibility that the princess may fully wake up, and at the strange tenor background to her voice that seeped through even the drunkenness of her speech.

_Something is really wrong with her voice. And her eyes..._

Fortunately, Elsa nodded slowly before saying, "_okay_..." and drifting back off.

Back into Anna's chest.

_God dammit_

Trying to ignore the warmth of the soft body pressed up against her, and the small vibrations of the gentle raspberries Elsa's breath was blowing against her cleavage, Anna looked around for help once more.

"So is this like...something the guards are supposed to take care of?"

A chef passing by with a small pot in hand shook his head, "they're security from outside danger, they've no business in here unless ordered otherwise by the higher-ups."

"Any chance at one of you strong men carrying her back to her room?"

"We've got work to do here," said the butcher. "We're the king's servants, not hers. Generally, the task _would_ have to fall to one of us in a situation like this but, fortunately for us, we've got her little slave girl around to tend to her instead. Besides, you're the one she collapsed on."

"Yeah," agreed someone else, "think of it like playing Ouija with your tits. Elsa's spirit, or spirits as the case may be, have chosen you."

"What if someone sees me carrying the limp princess around and gets the wrong idea?"

"You make a good point, that _would_ be pretty funny. I almost wish I could tag along just to watch it happen now."

"Can't I just leave her on the floor in the kitchen like she did to me?"

"Girl. Move it." Anna sensed the butcher's patience was at an end.

With a sigh and tired arms, she slung the light princess over her shoulder, thought better of it given what she imagined it would look like, repositioned to cradling the princess in her arms, and then strode out of the room."

The staff looked on as she walked out the door before one of them chuckled, queitly saying, "God, she has _no idea_ where Elsa's chambers are does she?"

Anna ignored the howls of laughter that followed her down the hall.

* * *

><p>Kristoff had to admit to a certain degree of frustration. As a general rule, he tried to avoid spending more than one night with the same woman, but here he was pressing a young maid he'd enjoyed not only a week ago against the wall for lack of any remaining noble girls in the castle. His had been a busy day, and wandering the town was out of the question, so for once he was resorting to a dish he'd already had the pleasure of sampling.<p>

She was good at least. Hot little vixen from a land he never cared to learn of, with full lips and fuller breasts and legs that he had discovered could, and did, wrap firmly around just about anything. Like they were doing now.

Though he knew he would have to break free from the embrace eventually to bring her to his room proper, he was still reluctant to turn away from her for the moment it would take to investigate the squeak he heard behind him that had accompanied the footsteps he had been hoping to ignore.

And of course, there was his sister, passed out in the arms of that poor slave girl with the fiery hair, who looked absolutely mortified, exhausted, and more than anything, defeated. All things considered though, this was a happier turn of events in his book than what he'd expected.

With a sigh, Kristoff put the maid down from the wall and told her where his room was, ushering her away with the promise of more. He was getting really tired of having to postpone these sorts of things.

He turned back to the slave girl, noting her blush redden further as she kept her eyes well away from the bulge that had developed in his pants quite a while ago, and he strode towards her, one hand rubbing his temple.

"Alright," he said,"you're looking for her room, right?"

The girl nodded, her stance stiff and her posture ramrod straight.

"Cool, listen, uh...?" He paused, expectantly.

She stared, expectantly.

"That's the silence you're supposed to fill by telling me your name."

"OH! Oh... Uh, sorry... Nobody's asked me that since I got here, I kinda just figured nobody cared..."

"Nobody does care," he reassured her, "but I still would like to know."

"Anna. It's Anna...my name..."

"Right, okay. Anyways, listen Anna, just follow me, I'll lead you to her chambers."

"Oh.. So I'll just... I'll follow you with her then?" Anna said, previously hoping she could have just dumped the princess on Kristoff and run away.

"Yep, you can bring her all the way there! I get the sense you'll enjoy holding her."

"Hey! I...err..." Anna trailed off, obviously not feeling crazy enough to legitimately shout at the prince.

"So," Kristoff began casually as they wandered through the halls, "how're you enjoying Arendelle?"

"It is to my liking, your highness," Anna said, trying to figure out why she had never been taught how to talk formally to royalty. It was, she suspected, why she had said essentially nothing to any royalty since arriving.

"That bad, eh?" Kristoff smiled. "Don't worry, you can speak plainly with me."

"Yeah...I really don't see that ever happening."

"See? You're getting the hang of it already."

Anna smiled, feeling herself becoming somewhat more at ease. An idea struck her.

"Hey, while we're being all plain and open here, my arms are killing me-"

"I'm still not carrying her," Kristoff responded, the shit eating grin on his face unfaltering.

"Thought I'd give it a try." She was finding it easier and easier to be relaxed around the prince as they went on. More so than she'd felt with anyone else. It was...nice. He had been the friendliest person to her so far.

_Which is kind of sad._

Kristoff tilted his head towards her, saying, "Elsa wasn't always like this, you know."

"I'm gonna be honest, Elsa has said all of like three sentences to me, so I'm probably not sure what you mean."

"Oh...well never mind then." Kristoff said, facing back towards the hall.

"You're free to talk about it if you want, I won't judge," Anna said, hoping she hadn't offended.

"No the moment's ruined now."

"It's totally not, that's just a lack of effort right there."

The prince sighed, but seemed to come to a decision in her favor, and said, "she's just been distant and irksome these past few years. We tease her about it, pretend it's that she doesn't have enough fun or whatever. But we all know something's troubling her."

Anna got the sense she'd accidentally sent this conversation on a crash course towards 'got drunk and shouldn't have said that' territory.

"She tries to hide it but everyone can tell she hears voices. Or a voice or something, I don't know."

"That's pretty strange," Anna admitted, trying to stay neutral as possible.

"We're worried about her, Anna." She hadn't realized how good it would feel to finally have somebody use her name again. "She's getting...mean. Cruel, sometimes. And now with the training and war on the horizon...I'm not sure about the kind of person she's going to decide to become."

They reached a door at the top of a staircase and stopped. Elsa's room. Kristoff looked to her.

"Anyways, the point is...I dunno...a heads up," he said. "But like, also to tell you that in spite of that she's not...I dunno...she's not violent or whatever. She's got a sharp temper, but she would never hurt anyone... She won't hurt you." At that he shook his head, burying his face in his palms. He was drunk and tired, and now he was sad at everything he had just said.

He opened the door for her, and Anna walked into the room. It was massive and everything in it was beautiful. More waves of jealousy.

She put Elsa down on her unreasonably large bed, considering tucking her in, but deciding that the princess probably could handle the cold pretty well.

Giving one last look to that flawless face, she turned around and walked back out of the room to where Kristoff was waiting.

"Alright," he said, "now I imagine nobody's bothered giving you anywhere to sleep, huh?"

"No," she admitted. "I slept on the kitchen floor last night though."

"Fortunately, the servant's quarters are nearby. Just down the stairs and follow the hall to the left. Once you get there a trail of torches is always lit to guide you to the rooms. There are always spare beds, just grab any empty looking one you see."

"Thanks," she told him, "for everything."

"Don't worry about it," he replied sleepily. Then, "good night, Anna."

He watched the girl march off for a bit before heading towards his own room. In other circumstances, he'd have probably tried to seduce the girl the first night he met her, especially just to see Elsa's reaction to her own birthday present showing up at the breakfast table. It was a pity such an attractive young lady as her radiated almost as much raw lesbian as her sister did, and Kristoff had policies where that was concerned.

On that note, or rather not, he recalled he had a girl waiting for him.

Wandering down the halls he pondered everything he had revealed, in a fit of melancholy, to his sister's slave girl. He probably shouldn't have been so open, but he had badly wanted to share it with someone, and the girl looked like she could use some calming down when it came to Elsa.

Settling in bed, he felt soft lips press against his, and a small hand guided his own between smooth thighs and towards a tender wetness. Kristoff closed his eyes and sighed into her.

And then rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

"Hey uh," he said to...whoever she was, "do you wanna just like...cuddle, tonight..?"

The maid climbed on top of him, he felt her powerful thighs on either side of his legs.

"Not even a little," she purred back.

* * *

><p>Anna finally found her way to the servants quarters, far further down towards the castle's foundations than she would have liked. They were less like quarters and more like a catacombs, with beds carved into the stone walls of a thin, winding hallway, three indents high. After enough walking she reached the end of the mass of servants clustered as close to the entrance as possible, finding a set of empty bed-holes separate enough from the rest of the snoring servants to feel comfortable in, but not far enough that she grew frightened from the loneliness and the dark, and settled in to a bed as hard as the rock it was made of.<p>

It was then, and only then, in the privacy of the semi-darkness afforded by the oddly spaced torches, that she reached down between her legs and felt the unbelievable wetness there. She grit her teeth in worry. This was not something anyone had ever been permitted to explain to her, at her previous owner's behest. Her questions of the burning sensations she had felt in the core of her body, especially all too often at the sight of the concubines, had been met with giggles and pats on the head. They had explained only the simplest parts of what it meant to lie with a man, and only about a man's desire and experience. She had been left to be frustrated and flustered by the mechanics of her own body.

She looked at the glistening substance on her fingers in the light of the scarce, dimly lit hall, her legs rubbing desperately together to no effect but worsening her torture. She hated nights like these, spent with an unknown lust for something she had never known how to sate.

Stifling a cry of frustration, she squinted her eyes shut, curled up, and tried to steady her breath and forget about the soft skin and beautiful face and warm breath of Elsa.

* * *

><p>Elsa's familiarity with hangovers never prepared her for when she experienced this particular brand of them. She rolled to the side slowly, hoping to find a side of her body she could lie on that would make the nausea less intense, and instead fell off her bed and onto the carpet below.<p>

-What the fuck?!-

Since when had she ever slept so close to the edge of her bed? She was always planted firmly in the center, giving her a good several feet on either side.

_ You were put on the end of the bed by someone other than yourself. You got totally plastered and you do not remember most of what you did._

Elsa laid back into the plush carpet, not bothering to try and drag herself back up to the comfort of her bed.

-Well, that explains it I guess-

_I remember most of what you did_

-Well aren't we the special snowflake this morning-

_Your brain stopped remembering things around when you stood up from the table, but I used your magic to make a memory recording then, for when you lost control of yourself_

Elsa was too hungover for the information to fully register, so instead she thought, -is it at least a memory I want you to show me?-

_You acted like a moron in front of your kitchen staff and then passed out on the slave girl_

-Fuck...I wanted to fuck her didn't I?-

_Don't feel too bad about it, I wanted to experience fucking her vicariously through you. So at least we have solidarity through that_

-Yeah...maybe don't show me that memory-

_I won't._

-Do you think I fucked it up permanently with her?-

_Well, that's the good news_

-Sweet Jesus, are you about to tell me something I want to hear for once?-

_Sort of. So you passed out with your head in her cleavage-_

-Okay next time I get horny I'm _definitely_ gonna pretend to be that drunk again-

_Shut up I'm not done...but that's not a bad idea, keep that one on record. More importantly though, I was able to force my way through to your conscience for a second and-_

-You _what?!_-

_Yeah! I know! There I was, finally you for like three seconds, and the brain I inherited was _too drunk_ for me to do anything with it except pass out again! Can you believe what a fucking gyp that is?_

-No! You don't get to control my body! It's _my_ body!-

_Piss off, I _am_ you_

-_Mine._-

_Whatever Elsa, I've been watching you underachieve for eighteen years and twenty four hours, I can wait a bit longer for when you finally need me_

-Dream on-

_Anyways, my point is I heard her heartbeat speed up_

-This would be while you got to experience your face up against real life girl boobs that I had rightfully earned by passing out on, by using my body?-

_Elsa you're missing the point. You made her heart rate increase._

-So you mean you scared the shit out of her-

_No, it was the _good_ kind of heart rate increase_

-Which you would know how? What, are you trying to tell me you're some kind of heart expert now?-

_No, this is all knowledge you could have yourself if you just bothered to remember and piece together every second of every experience in your life the way I have_

-That sounds like a fascinating endeavor-

_It's not, your life hasn't been that riveting, but I somehow managed regardless_

-That was sarcasm-

_ I know. I was making fun of you even in spite of it. That's just how easy it is to make fun of you._

-Hey, here's a thought: what if you used everything I've ever learned to tell me how to make this hangover go away?-

_Sure. You control ice, which you can freeze from water in the air, or which you can create from nothingness by turning the background magical energy stream into matter in the current dimension. Bring ice with increased thermal energy from the magic stream to your bloodstream to hydrate, while rendering the alcohol's toxic byproducts in your system back into their own energy and returning them back to the energy stream as the equal-opposite reaction required for any magical transaction, making up for any energy-conversion difference between water and toxins with a divided thermal modulation in the atmosphere around you, which, if you're using enough air volume, should only really be a few degrees up or down if we're being honest with ourselves._

-If we're being honest with ourselves, you're a fucking pedant and obviously I have no idea how to do that, nor can I muster the precision to target small parts of my body even if I knew what to target. Which you know.-

_I do. I was obviously just being pedantic because making you think while you're hungover is hilarious and I'm still pissed that you fucked up our one shot at seeing real life girl boobs._

"Gerdaaaa...!" Elsa whined aloud.

After what felt like an eternity, but was actually about four seconds, the maid moseyed on in. "What?" She asked, too old and experienced with hungover royalty to bother with formalities.

"You see the dresser up there?" Elsa croaked, her throat parched and sore.

"Yes. Also you're on the floor."

"You see how there's like...glasses of water on it?"

"You're kidding me Elsa."

"Bring me one of those glasses of water." Elsa then thought for a minute, missing the disappointing glare she was receiving. "Actually, just bring me all of them. I'll work my way through them on my own time. Also can you bring breakfast up here too?"

"The king has given me strict instructions to inform you that, if I ever found you like this again, I was to remind you that, and I'm quoting him here, 'you are a loser.'"

"Thanks Gerda. Don't forget to sleep with your mouth shut, I hear you eat about ten dicks on average a year at night."

"That's spiders, dear." Gerda said, beginning to move the glasses from the counter to the carpet beside Elsa.

"Nope, pretty sure it's dicks as far as you're concerned."

"You know, I always wonder if that number of spiders we're supposed to eat in our sleep is more of a requirement than an average."

"I feel like you're about to start telling me something that's going to make my nights even worse than my mornings."

There were still several glasses to go. "I imagine to myself, sometimes, what if the few hundred spiders that that works out to you eating in your lifetime is a definite, no matter what?"

"I think I'm good with the water you've brought me already, you're free to just fuck off whenever."

Gerda moved back up to the final glasses of water. "So then on your deathbed, if you haven't eaten your requirement of spiders yet, they descend upon you all at once to be eaten because that's just how it _has_ to be. Do you ever ponder these things, Elsa?"

"I was actually pondering murdering you, then I started pondering murdering myself, and now you've made me want to never come anywhere close to death ever. So thanks for that."

The last few glasses of water were placed beside her head. "My point is, Elsa, that you're young and you have plenty of time left."

Elsa sighed, knowing that what she was about to hear was probably going to be some important, wise truth she would have to let become a part of her.

"It's important that you get in on this spider business early, chomp a few down even while you're awake. Spare yourself the potential misery of an arachnid filled deathbed."

Elsa nodded at her maid. "Wow Gerda, you know, there was a real second there where I was expecting some straight up philosophical shit to come out of all of that."

"Kid, I don't even know how to read."

"You apparently don't know how to be dismissed either, so I'll put it in peasant terms: fuck off, Gerda."

When she was alone again, she sipped water and tried to think of nothing. She especially tried to ignore the voice in her head's attempts to explain that Gerda may have had a point beyond going senile eight years ago.

-Hey, voice in my mind- she thought, eventually. -You know a lot about magic, and I know we're not always on the best of terms, but...-

_I'm listening_

-My point is that, given that regardless of who's controlling the body, we're both pretty interested in the body being able to do more, to be better, right?-

_You want me to help further your magic?_

-I want you to further my magic in all the ways I want it furthered that don't adhere to Ansgar's schedule-

_Ah, that would be the schedule enforced by your father?_

-No, actually dad's wartime schedule is pretty allowing of cool stuff. I just want to go faster than I think Ansgar can teach-

_I rely on your memories, Elsa. I can't teach you faster than what it's possible for you to have conceivably deduced. Your lessons with him will be absolutely critical, since he contains so much raw information I can connect._

-So I have two sets of lessons now?-

_The catch is there's some vicarious living I want to do through you that you've been neglecting. Fucking the slave girl is only a fraction of it, even though I suspect that alone will involve you actually spending time with the poor thing and getting to know her._

-So you agree to interpret lessons and explain magic to me in fundamental ways I could never grasp otherwise, and I agree to go out and have fun?-

_That's the gist of it_

-What's the first step? Please say it's flying-

_ Flying's fucking complicated. I don't even know if _I_ could manage that without practice_

-Alright, what then?-

_Wow, miss obedience over here suddenly. Don't worry, the first thing we're learning is kind of like an exoskeleton, only it's under your skin, right?_

-Haha, what's an exoskeleton?-

* * *

><p><strong>The thing is, Skye, if I just happily Palahniuk'd my story this early and actually had this chapter ruin the fluffy slowburn by having Elsa ravage Anna in some visceral, horrible way, it would pop the brutality cherry the world builds towards, and defeat all the fun of how many broken bones Elsa's going to have screamed through by the end of part 1. I don't want to lull you into a false sense of security, but trust me when I say that there will be a noticeable shift to when all the really fun shit starts to go down.<br>**


	6. Chapter 6

**I ended up having way more time to write this than I had previously thought, so that's fun.**

* * *

><p>Ansgar visited Elsa in her bed later that afternoon after hearing the news. Though mostly he'd heard the shriek. He found her lying down, broken leg propped up and bandaged as best as could be managed. She turned to him, giving a smile through the sweat and pain he saw written on her face.<p>

"It's not actually broken," she said, by way of explanation, "they tell me I just sprained...pretty much everything in my leg. It'll heal up in a few days if I don't move it, according to the doctors, so I figure I'll be good by tomorrow morning."

Ansgar smiled. "The perks of being a sorceress. Now, I hear this is all in the wake of some progress you made with your magic, independently."

Elsa beamed, "it is!"

"Well, do tell."

"I made ice under my skin."

"As armor?"

"Yeah, like an exoskeleton but obviously not on the outside of my body."

"So, not really an exoskeleton at all then?"

"But it was really easy to control for some reason, it moved around my joints with barely any concentration."

Ansgar nodded, "our influence over magic weakens as we distance ourselves from what it is we wish to manipulate. Direct contact has always been the greatest conductor for magic, so I imagine under your skin where all parts of your ice are in contact with you would be especially easy to control."

"That makes sense."

"So how was it?"

Elsa's grin grew even wider, "it was fucking _awesome_."

"Apparently not awesome enough."

"Alright, I will admit, I had been slowly working up the height of my jumps to see how far I could make it from, but I think I might have overestimated just how high the wall around the castle is."

"Indeed, I saw the crater. Still, you are in remarkably good health, and I find myself surprised again at the ferocity with which you have taken to advancing your skills."

"I've decided I like magic. Magic is fun."

"That it is, Elsa."

Elsa sighed, looking back towards her leg. She didn't want to wait for it to heal. She wanted to return the exhilaration she had experienced earlier.

"I want to go back to jumping off of stuff, Ansgar."

"I want seaside property and a harem of scantily clad women from exotic countries who can feed me grapes and tell me all about just how damn fine my jawline is."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Oh...I thought we were sharing our dreams with...never mind."

"No," Elsa said slowly, "I want you to show me how to heal myself."

"Well, you are an ice sorceress, so I'm going to have to remind you to join the rest of us back here in reality. Besides, you've had enough fun for one day."

"I've spent the whole day lying down from hangovers and injuries."

"And whose fault is that?"

"How does Raphael do it?"

Ansgar closed his eyes, pinching his nose. "It is complicated, even for me to understand, and I have business to attend to. I can explain it to you later, but don't get your hopes up. Crossing into disciplines of magic you haven't been gifted with at birth is...well, it's unheard of."

He left Elsa to her disappointed looks, and set off to find the king.

* * *

><p>Agdar greeted Ansgar as he strode into the meeting room, "good of you to finally join us."<p>

"Apologies, I was checking up on my pupil," he replied, taking a chair and an offered glass of scotch.

"How is she?" Makin asked from his position at a nearby table, scattered with parchments and a precariously balanced ink well.

"She has magic in her veins, she will be fine."

"I see her training is progressing splendidly," Agdar said, some sarcasm present in his voice.

"This she did of her own accord," Ansgar answered truthfully. "My plan for her hadn't involved anything so advanced so early."

"If my daughter is ready to advance her studies at that rate I strongly urge you to keep up with your curriculum. Time is of the essence, and this could be a much needed boon given recent information."

"Ah, indeed, to business Agdar. What news of our little pals from the Southern Isles?"

"Their allegiance with Lettes has gone awry. It would seem our small, eastern neighbor has gotten quite ahead of itself since acquiring Raphael. Unfortunately, their army swells as defectors from the less powerful surrounding nations swear their allegiance. It is likely king Alexander will attempt to expand Lettes's territories to his less powerful neighbors, place an ultimatum on Polotsk and Kiev to surrender and bend the knee."

Ansgar nodded, "we prepared for the reality that not every country would pick the sides presented to it, and sorcerers have always been an unpredictable factor. Besides, between us and the Southern Isles, there shouldn't be much trouble ensuring they don't become more than a nuisance."

Makin shook his head, moving away from the table to join the conversation. "You forget, we are the face of benevolence in this. Such an obvious attempt to suppress their power would give the wrong impression to potential allies. It may have worked, had the Southern Isles not failed to maintain their allegiance with them, but now it simply means Arendelle has an enemy to her rear borders that must be given the first move. Not an ideal scenario, and growing worse by the day."

"Do you think Alexander knows of our plans with the Southern Isles in full?" Ansgar asked. "If not, he may be scared into inaction at our presence long enough for us to settle this."

"I don't like it," Agdar responded, "I'm worried they will grow too strong too fast."

"A solution, perhaps," Ansgar offered, "if, Makin, you are so inclined to barter with some of Almoravid's goods and trickery for a weaker sorcerer from your surrounding tribe lands, we could let the Southern Isles "discover" him."

Makin smiled, continuing the plan, "We can give them Ramzi, the old fire mage. They subdue Lettes for us and then Ramzi is found dead when the dust settles, an inevitability really in the heat of battle when questions are raised. As the underdog, the Southern Isles can maintain its reputation as railing against undue power, and we're back on track."

"What Ramzi lacks in strength compared to what we know of Raphael so far, the Isles will make up for in the sheer strength of their army." Agdar sat back, draining his scotch. "This I do like. Write your council to obtain this Ramzi. Send word to Amaury with haste as well, he'll want time to prepare to keep his 'newly discovered' treasure a secret. Now, of the other nations...?"

Makin motioned to the cluttered table, "none suspect."

"Good. I love a happy ending."

* * *

><p>Anna was greeted by a servant as she returned to the castle later that evening, empty bucket in tow.<p>

"Be honest with me," he said, "did you dump that bucket of offal into the moat?"

"Be honest with me, what's the best way for me to answer that question?"

"Probably while prostrated, and begging for forgiveness."

"It's a pretty big moat, I don't think it's about to start overflowing with guts anytime soon."

"Oddly enough, the last offal guy was actually found overflowing with guts too. He was a bit of a slacker himself."

"So I heard, but that was down at the docks, so I think I've actually got all my bases covered by staying up here."

"You say that now, but you're upsetting the natural environment in the moat that we work so hard to foster."

"The moat has a natural environment? Whose shitty idea was that?"

"We breed piranhas in the moat."

"_What?!_ Why?"

"People used to swim in it."

"Why would you put _piranhas_ in a _moat_?!" Anna was pretty sure this was something she shouldn't have to explain.

"Hey, don't ask me, I'm just the guy who feeds them. Or I was, now I seem to have some stiff competition from somebody throwing fresh meat into there for them."

"Wait, wouldn't feeding them the offal be the best way to get rid of it?"

"You say that now, but the moat is a lot more dangerous when the population triples from an overabundance of food. I saw it happen once, they just thrashed around constantly, the water was never still, until eventually they ate each other to survive. It was awful."

"Alright, alright, Jesus, I won't throw guts into the moat."

"Cool. Oh, by the way, the princess requested your presence in her chambers, immediately."

Anna tried and failed to look like her heart didn't skip a beat.

"Wow, you are a huge tool, you know that?"

"You have no idea. By the way, you may want to have bathed and changed into something nicer looking back when you still had the time."

"This is all the clothing I have, and I don't know where I'm supposed to bathe. Also you're still a tool."

"Usually we bathe in the moat, but now there are too many piranhas."

"Fuck off."

"I'm pretty sure that's your job," he said, walking past her.

Anna tried not to panic. She had somewhat assumed this would come. When she had first been given to the princess, her imagination had run wild with the horrors of being used as some sort of punching bag. While she didn't enjoy her time at the castle one bit, she had found herself relieved that her owner had all but ignored except in rare, admittedly horrifying instances.

After last night, though...well she wasn't sure what the princess wanted. Her mind immediately drifted back to senseless cruelty as she walked through the halls, slowing her pace as much as she dared to prolong the confrontation. If the princess was upset about what had happened, she would have to rely on Kristoff's vouching for her from last night.

_Am I in heaven?_

The thought came unbidden to her, prompting her memory of Elsa pressed against her, staring down her loose shirt to flood her mind, also unwelcome. She felt a blush form and the warmth she had tried to stifle last night returned to her.

Her mind and body seemed to be doing a whole bunch of shit at the moment that she was pretty damn sure she hadn't asked it to do.

She stopped in her tracks when it finally hit her, albeit several days later than any reasonably intelligent person would have taken to figure it out.

The rumors of princess Elsa's...deviancy. They were true.

_Oh shit oh shit_ Anna's panic began to switch to a different focus. What if the princess had called upon her as...company of some sort?

_I mean, she's attractive and all but..._ but Anna wasn't sure what. She just knew she was filled to the brim with apprehension, and yet she couldn't get that damn memory of Elsa pressed against her out of her head.

She was reminded by it all that she had no idea how the desires of women worked.

_No, this is ridiculous, stop thinking like this_ she told herself, taking deep breaths to calm down.

Nobody would ever bed a girl who smelled of guts and rot she figured, for starters.

And if she had been called upon to satisfy princess Elsa's appetites...well, that's what she'd do. She was a slave girl after all. She knew how to do as she was told.

She hoped.

But she wouldn't be called for that, because she smelled like shit, she reminded herself. The princess had told her as much.

With a huff of resolution, she quickened her pace. Might as well get whatever it was over with.

Approaching the wing of the castle she recalled Elsa's room being in, she was stopped by a guard.

"You're Elsa's slave girl?" He asked.

_Oh fuck..._

"Yes...?" She said meekly.

"Follow me, you are to bathe before seeing her highness."

_Oh FUCK_

* * *

><p>Elsa was bored. Her leg had stopped hurting, but she was still confined to bed, and it was boring. She was bored as the day wasted away before her, and she was bored as the sun began to set and she was bored up until her slave girl was unceremoniously shoved into her room, wearing washed clothes finally.<p>

"Oh good, took you long enough," she said.

As usual, the slave girl's perpetual trembling and terrified face were on full blast today. Fortunately, her smell was not, thank the Gods. It was the one thing from last night she could recall with any clarity, and it was atrocious. But stink or no, the quivering stayed.

"Okay look, I know I can come across as intimidating but seriously you look like you think I brought you here so that I could murder you."

The slave girl said nothing, eyes wide as ever and locked on Elsa. Her shoulders were raised high and tense.

Elsa rolled her own eyes. "Which is exactly what I'm going to do," she finished, bursting out laughing at the horrified gasp that brought from the girl.

"Christ you're easy to mess with. No, I'm not going to murder you, you're here for like...the exact opposite reason.," she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Whatever effect she had hoped this would have on her slave, it was not the full blown hyperventilation it ended up inspiring. What the fuck was wrong with this kid?

"Okay, I'm seriously starting to think you're retarded, can you actually speak?"

The girl opened her mouth to respond and a small, gently gurgled squeak came out instead, so she resorted to just nodding her head quickly.

"If you don't say something soon I'm gonna take that nod as a 'yes Elsa, I'm totally retarded'."

The girl opened her mouth, ready to give acting like a normal human being a second try, "A..uh..wh..what do you want me to say?" She finally managed.

Elsa smirked, rolling her head back to look up at her bed's canopy. "Take a seat, kid," she said, motioning with a jerk of her chin to a chair that had been placed a few feet away from the bed.

On shaky legs, the girl strode over to it and sat herself down.

"Seriously, you can relax, you're not here for anything bad, I'm just bored cause I'm bedridden and I need someone to distract me before I go insane."

"O..okay."

"Turns out all the servants are under orders to not let _me_ distract _them_ for very long, which is a bummer for me, but then I go and remember 'Hey! I've totally got someone I get to boss around!' So, y'know...here you are!"

"Here I am..."

Elsa briefly considered apologizing for passing out in the girl's cleavage, but immediately realized how ridiculous the notion of apologizing to a slave was.

Instead she said, "also, I don't remember a thing from last night, so if you're all panicky about anything that happened, it's probably all good with me now."

The girl had finally gained some composure, though her eyes were cast back down on the floor like they were when she had first been presented to Elsa. "If...If you don't remember last night, then how do you know it's me you should be explaining this to?"

"Well shit, I guess you've got me there," Elsa conceded. A rare occurrence, though it helped that she didn't want to be telling her slave girl anything about the voice in her head. She had appearances to uphold, after all. "I remember I was heading down to the kitchen for my steak. I'm sure I just figured you'd be there, and we didn't have the best of introductions last time steak and wine were involved," Elsa chuckled at the memory of the redhead fainting. Stupid slave girl.

_Stupid cute slave girl_

-Fuck off, I've got this-

_Aside from having no idea how to not behave like a fucking asshole, you mean?_

-I said shut up. You're making my head twitch. She's going to think I'm almost as weird as she is.-

"I'm sorry about the steak thing," the girl told her.

After some panicked consideration, she added, "uh..your highness."

"Yeah, no kidding. I get one steak a day and-"

_Elsa for fuck's sake_

"Uuh...but don't worry about it."

_Getting there_

"And um...you don't have to worry about the 'your highness' stuff when we're already talking."

_Tell her she can just call you by your name_

-What? No that's so cliché!-

_Chicks dig cliché_

Elsa sighed, "you can just, like...call me Elsa."

At that the slave girl smiled, casting her eyes upwards finally and responding with, "what is it with royalty and saying that to me recently?"

-Oh you fucking bitch you _lied_ to me!-

_Okay no, _that_ was not my fault_

"It's probably because the whole thing gets really boring really fast. Like, when I was younger I used to think I'd always love people having to show all the ridiculous forms of deference to me, and it's still great I gotta admit, but the title thing is super tedious."

The girl nodded.

_See, you lost her again. She doesn't care about royal people problems, she's a slave_

-Well _I_ think the title thing was annoying-

_You call her 'slave girl' like are you actually being for real right now? You don't even _know_ her name!_

-Right, good point-

"So, uh...?" Elsa asked expectantly.

The girl looked at her, expectantly.

-Looks like I'm gonna have to do all the work here-

"Your name?" Elsa asked. "What is your name?"

"Oh!" The girl looked tremendously embarrassed at this, "right, it's Anna."

"Anna," Elsa said.

"Yes?" Anna asked.

"What? No, I was just repeating your name to see how it sounded."

"Oh.."

"It's uh...it's a pretty name."

Anna blushed, and it was adorable. "Thank you," she replied.

_Fucking _nice_! All aboard the pussy express!_

-Yeah that _was_ pretty smooth, go me-

"Elsa, can I ask you a question?"

_Okay, you're doing well, just whatever you do, _don't _say "you just di-"_

"Well, you just did, but you're permitted another one," Elsa said with a smile.

-_Fuck_ you're right that was so lame! Why didn't you warn me earlier?-

_I didn't think you'd actually _say_ it, what's _wrong_ with you Elsa?!_

-Oh God I don't know, fucking God dammit-

Anna giggled, a genuine, pure sounding thing. She thought it was funny.

_Wow. That right there is straight up proof of the existence of magic, because there's no logical explanation for why she didn't just roll her eyes and straight up call you a faggot_

-I am the luckiest person on Earth-

"It's about piranhas," Anna said.

Elsa nodded. "Piranhas. Like the kinds we have in the moat?"

Anna's eyes grew wide again, "so it's true?"

Elsa laughed out a, "no! I can't believe you fell for that one!"

Anna blushed. "It seemed convincing at the time."

"Ha! Yeah, I'll bet it did. You'll have to give up feeding them guts though, I'm afraid," she teased.

Anna gasped, "you know about that?!"

There was a pause.

"Are you being serious right now? Cause I was joking about you doing that, but I'm not so sure you were joking about doing that..." Elsa said suspiciously.

"...Yes. I was joking," the redhead responded after careful thought.

"You're lying aren't you."

"Uuh..."

"You're lying right through your teeth at me."

"Of course not."

"Seriously Anna?! That's my moat, you can't just pour guts into my moat!"

"Exactly, that would be a terrible thing for a person to do."

Elsa remembered to cool herself down.

"Just...don't do it anymore, please?" She asked, trying not to sound too mad.

"Yeah okay...sorry." The girl looked genuinely sorry so she left it at that.

Which left the room suddenly very quiet.

_Say something, it's awkward again. You made it awkward._

-What was I supposed to do, she poured offal into the moat? Who _does_ that?!-

_It's hilarious and you and I both know it_

"Say," Elsa said, brightening up, "you're young, and pretty much destitute. I bet you've never been drunk before!"

"Uuh...no? I guess I haven't," Anna said, a little worriedly.

"There's a whole bunch of wine and some glasses in that dresser over there. Trust me you're gonna love this."

* * *

><p><strong>No better influence than a bad one<br>**


	7. Chapter 7

"So, a white or a red?"

Anna wasn't sure what the difference was, just like she wasn't sure she wanted to subject herself to drunk Elsa again, but she wasn't about to refuse the princess so she had done as she was told, pulling up a nightstand and setting out two glasses on it within reach of Elsa on the bed, who had shuffled over till she was near the edge. After starting a fire, with Elsa's permission, for some lighting and a bit of heat, she'd finally settled back in to the soft chair she'd been using.

"Which do you prefer?"

"I'm a white girl, myself," Elsa said, almost a thousand years too early too fully appreciate the sentiment, "but if you're looking for a fuller bodied wine, red's usually got your back."

"What does a full body mean for a wine?" Anna asked. She was new to all this, and she had to admit she was more than a little excited. She'd heard much of the dangers of drink, but also of the pleasures to be had in it.

_Hopefully tonight will involve more of the pleasures_ Anna thought, experiencing her own moment of innocent obliviousness. Even seconds after she had thought it, she continued to not connect the innuendo, and the hilarity was lost to the roiling nether of the universe for all time, a tragedy unparalleled.

"You know, I've never actually had anyone explain it to me properly, but I've found the difference is that 'full bodied' means it tastes like it actually has shit in it," Elsa explained, careful to put the emphasis on 'has' rather than 'shit' because even Anna couldn't miss that one. "I think the idea is that it tastes less like water and more like horrible, rotten grapes."

"That does sound like a pretty fair comparison," Anna said. Then, because she was a daredevil who lived life on the edge, "I think I'll try the red."

"Alright, looks like we're color coding," Elsa said happily. She pressed her index finger to the bottle of white and sent out a corkscrew of ice through the top, popping the cork with a well practiced slide of her finger, careful not to pull so hard she dislocated her knuckle. She had done that before, and her father had laughed at her for almost thirty straight minutes before he could muster the wherewithal to push her finger back into place and end her crying.

Anna stared, which made Elsa giggle.

"You're still not used to the magic, huh?" She asked. Anna shook her head, staring.

"Remind me to show you more later," Elsa said, a tinge of anticipation in her voice. Anna was giving such a mundane parlor trick such attention, and she found herself craving the reaction she would get for the more impressive feats.

After popping the second bottle, she poured it into Anna's glass, and then her own bottle into her own, lifting hers up and offering a 'cheers' that Anna hastily met, before downing a gulp of the soothing liquid.

Anna took a sip, scrunching her face up, which made Elsa laugh in earnest.

"You'll get used to it. It's only wine."

Anna nodded, swallowing the foul liquid quickly. She couldn't believe people actually made habits out of this shit.

"I have to admit," she said, "I'm feeling a little nervous."

"First time's always scary," Elsa said in consolation. She shifted herself up on her bed, noticing her leg was considerably better, and she used it to knock the prop off the bed to the carpet below before turning to her slave girl and smiling.

"So hey," she said, "tell me about yourself."

Anna took another sip of her wine before answering, a bigger one this time. She didn't like it, but she'd be damned if her curiosity wasn't shining through.

"Well, uh...what did you want to know?"

Elsa shrugged. "Anything. I don't really know much about you. I dunno, say...what's the earliest thing you remember with any clarity?"

Anna smiled, she liked that memory. Elsa smiled at her smiling, and it made Anna feel happy to please. Especially since Elsa's odd facial and head twitches had finally died down. Anna had guessed, accurately, that Elsa's voices had been talking to her for most of their conversation. It as nice to see the princess calm down.

"That's probably my farm," she said. "It's pretty hazy, but I remember all the green grass because it was on a really big hill but it was flat in the middle, I think? I'm not sure, but I loved how every time I left the house I could see so far into the distance where all these big mountains would loom all around us. And I remember loving all the cows and chickens we had because they were so cute. I used to not know why some of them would disappear, but I remember it made me so sad to think of it." Anna scoffed at the memory. "I never related it to the times we got to eat until our stomachs felt like they could burst. And I think my mom and dad were pretty old for when I was born, but I still loved their faces. I remember thinking they had the most beautiful faces." Anna shrugged. "The memory of what they looked like is blurry now though..."

She looked at Elsa and realized how much she'd just revealed. "Sorry, I know that's not really very specific, but..."

"No no, don't worry about it," Elsa reassured. She was most of the way through her wine now, and settling down to the pleasant numbness. She suddenly wanted to hear the entirety of this tale. She took a glimpse at Anna's glass, now barely half empty. But the rosy complexion on her cheeks marked her status as a first time drinker. Elsa hoped she'd be the talkative type.

"So you weren't born a slave then?" She asked, eager for more.

"No, that came later, probably when I was about five. I think that's probably my first concrete memory. My dad and mom were screaming about something, I don't really remember how it started or what happened, and then dad was trying to make me leave with mom but neither of us wanted to go, and I had started crying. He finally pushed mom out the door, and I ran to her, and I remember her picking me up and running away as fast as she could. I don't remember how far we got but eventually we stopped because there were people everywhere around us, most of them were on horses. My mom stopped running and had just put me down but kept her arms on me all the time. I guess she was being protective. She kept spinning around to look at people." Anna took a gulp of wine this time, her gag reflex lessening as she felt a soothing calmness overtaking her. Elsa was still looking at her like she was fascinated with the story, so Anna went on.

"Eventually someone grabbed me and ripped me away from her and they turned me around and marched me in front of them where I couldn't see mom. I heard her scream a lot, and then she tried to scream my name but her voice stopped suddenly, I'm pretty sure it was the last thing I got to hear her say."

She stared down at her glass, the liquid in it suddenly becoming tantalizing as she realized it was the first time she'd been able to recall that memory so calmly. She finished her glass before asking, "should I continue?"

"Yeah, actually," Elsa said, reaching to pour her a new glass of wine, "this is already winding up to be a pretty riveting tale."

Anna missed the twitch of Elsa's head before she said, "but uh...that sounds pretty rough, I'm sorry."

Anna shrugged, taking another sip of wine before going on. "They put me in shackles and I had to walk behind their horses for hours until we reached a larger group where I was put in with other girls my age. I couldn't understand any of the men on horseback, but most of the girls I could understand. Sometimes we talked to each other, but at the start we mostly cried, and complained at having to walk behind horses all day. Every night the men set up tents that they shared while we slept outside, and there was always a different, bigger tent set up for what seemed like the biggest, strongest man I had ever seen. I remember him, I think he was the leader because everyone always listened when he talked, and he had a really long sword that I always called 'The Squiggle' in my mind because it looked so curvy.

"At night when we slept the men would stay awake and yell and cheer, and a lot of the time the leader would take people from the group of women they had let tend to us into his tent with him. We used to not understand why, and none of the other women would tell us, but sometimes he would take the younger girls from my group and the next morning the girls would come back and they wouldn't really talk to us anymore after that. I was one of the few who never got chosen to go to the tent, but it never made me happy to think so."

Anna wasn't sure when, but she had finished her glass and didn't even notice Elsa pouring new ones for both girls.

"I think I was there for almost half a year. We used to stop at small cities and sometimes when we left there were fewer of us, I guess looking back now they must have been sold. But we always had new men and women and girls and boys coming in with small groups of men on horses that they would send out as we went along in one direction that just seemed to stretch on and on. I remember one girl, her name was Ariel, and she had hair as red as mine. We used to talk a lot, and huddle together at nights praying that we would never be chosen to go to the tent. I remember thinking she was so pretty, and she used to tell me we would always be friends. We would joke that someday we would get married.

"The man with the curved sword took her into his tent one night, and she stopped talking to me like the others. They sold her a few days later at the next city. It's weird I remember her, she was such a brief part of my life, probably only around for a month or so, but I cried for so long after she left that eventually one of the women had to hold her hand over my mouth so that the men on horses wouldn't lose their patience and start hurting people in their anger like they did when we got newcomers who didn't know. The woman told me if I kept crying she would strangle me herself.

"The second clearest night I remember was when the man with the curved sword was approaching his tent, he had a woman this time instead of a girl, which we were always thankful for, and an arrow went through his eye and all I could think was that it had been over too quick for him. I remember thinking I had wanted him to scream for each scream he had ever created in this world, but suddenly he was gone like it was nothing, and everything became very loud very fast, and a man placed his hands on my shoulders and whispered into my ear to close my eyes. I did, and two hands were cupped over my ears that I suppose were his, but I heard everything that happened anyways. When it was finally quiet, Makin lifted me to my feet and told me it was alright to open my eyes now.

"I was placed on a horse of my own, since they had captured many of the horses and we rode, a small company of us, back through all the land I had passed in the German horde. There were so few people, I had never understood how they had managed to kill the vast numbers of my captors. I'm sure now that there was probably a sorcerer with them, but at the time I thought they all must have been gods. I had asked what had happened to the other people in chains, but nobody would tell me.

"We kept going, and it got hotter and hotter and in the span of a few days we went from grass to sand and finally, after a year spent since I had been taken from my farm, we reached Makin's palace. I suppose that was ten years ago. I was given a cell, and called a slave, and I worked with small tasks to help keep the palace in order. Mainly washing dishes. I was given planned meals and made to exercise in certain ways, their way of turning me into an object of desire for some noble or another I suppose, for when Makin finally had an opportunity to make use of me. Most of my days were spent lounging with the concubines in their rooms of silk. They shared stories of the world they had learned of through their lives and through the men they spent time with. One of them taught me to read and write."

This raised Elsa's eyebrows, the first visible reaction she had shown since Anna had started. A literate girl of her status was a rarity indeed.

"The king never let me near his books though, which always made me sad. But the tales and stories kept my mind full for ten years. I heard tidbits of all the happenings in the world, I heard of people with fantastical powers. I heard of you, the first royal born with magic, that they said was tenfold that of any common blood court wizard. Then, the next thing I knew, I was on a ship headed here and...well, I guess you know the rest."

Elsa stared at her. She picked her bottle up and drank directly from it before reaching down to grasp Anna's bottle and offer it to her. Anna took it and drank, the flavour of the fluid lessening in intensity with the soothing buzz she had reached.

"When I was seven," Elsa said, "my father had been away for almost half a year. Before he left, I had asked him what it was like to be a grown up. Five minutes of conversation later, I was finally told that, on my first bleeding, I was to be wed to a fifty year old king to extend father's allegiance over the Swedish territories to the east. I spent six months praying to anyone and anything that would listen to stop the marriage. I remembered the desperation I felt in every day, as though wanting something hard enough could make it happen. I remember spending every second I had alone with clenched muscles and intense concentration, thinking of ways to spare myself from the plan life had for me. I'd never wanted something so badly in my life. It felt as though by sheer conviction alone the world would be forced to accommodate.

"One day, I opened my eyes from my concentration and found the the room I was in transformed, iced over. The windows were shattered and a thousand spikes of frozen water reached out from each corner towards me. By the time father returned, mere weeks later, it was as though his love for me had doubled in his time away. Suddenly, I was not only on par with my brother, but better than him. Everything I wanted, they gave. I was no longer to be married, too valuable an asset to send off to some other country, especially after the Swedish king bent the knee to father at my discovery and allowed his lands to be absorbed and his titles dissolved into dukedom.

"My earliest clear memory is of my father holding my hand as he led me to a balcony overlooking a crowd of more people than I had ever seen. He raised my arm up with his and I made it snow with so little effort." She smiled at the memory. "They cheered so loud and so suddenly I actually started crying, and later my father made fun of me for days for it."

Elsa looked across to Anna. "I suppose that doesn't really hold a candle to your story, huh?"

Anna shrugged again, "it is what it is," she said.

After a moment of silence, Anna said, "I really like this," bobbing the bottle in her hand as indication.

Elsa smiled, "yeah, it feels nice doesn't it."

"I'm gonna be honest, it's really starting to hit me."

"Same here. Not complaining though, we just laid down some heavy shit and I was really hoping it wouldn't get awkward afterward."

"Nah, what happened for me happened a while ago. I'm pretty sure most of it got pampered out of me in the desert." Anna reclined back in her seat, enjoying the sensations washing over her, before remembering something.

"Oh, Elsa," she said, leaning forward again.

"Yeah, what's up," came the response.

"Show me your magic," the request was simple but Elsa felt unbelievably giddy at it. She was raring to show off to someone.

"Alright," she said, holding a hand up, "so I make ice." A globe of perfectly smooth ice appeared in her hand. Anna stared at it, fascinated, so she tossed it over to the girl who caught it awkwardly and at the last second.

"Whoa," she said, staring at it. Eventually she looked up and said, "it's really cold, can I like...put it down somewhere?"

Elsa laughed and with a thought it dissipated into vapour, which made Anna gasp again.

Summoning more magic, concentrating through the haze of wine, she continued, "but so far I've been learning that more accurately what I do is about moving heat around in and out of water," she reached out in front of Anna's mouth as the girl let out a breath, and the air from her mouth solidified into a billowing sculpture of ice that Elsa took to examine.

"So I'm going to ask my teacher to show me what I can do with that, because there's a lot of stuff with water in it."

The sculpture folded back into a globe, leaving a bubble of air in the shape of an intricate snowflake. She put it down on the table between them.

Elsa was showing off, she knew, and it felt good. The attention she was getting from the redhead was addictive, intoxicating her all on its own. There was something about the way the girl's eyes ate up everything she did with such pure admiration that made Elsa feel more full than she could have thought possible. To Anna she was a god. She was big and strong and smart and capable and in control. With Anna she felt powerful, and she didn't want that feeling to end.

But as she stifled a yawn, she realized it had to. At least for tonight.

"Anyways," Elsa said reluctantly, "I think it's time we went to bed."

"Yeah," Anna agreed, and for a second, Elsa saw her gaze longingly move to her bed. She ached to tell the redhead she could spend the night in it, to hold her and kiss away everything the girl had shared with her until all that remained was the warm person she couldn't help but see inside her slave girl.

Anna's eyes turned to her, then, and she caught the full blast of longing through those eyes, half hidden through lids drooped by drink.

_ 'I remember thinking she was so pretty, and she used to tell me we would always be friends. We would joke that someday we would get married.'_

-Fuck...- Elsa thought. She was even into girls, too. Everything she had wanted, she knew, was right in front of her, waiting for her to take it.

"Good night Anna."

"Good night Elsa. Thanks for...everything."

_Coward_

It hadn't needed to be said, but she closed her eyes against the accusation anyways as the girl left the room.

She lay back down in her bed, appreciating the rest it gave to her leg, while finishing off the bottle in her hand, the absence of the one she'd left in Anna's care not going unnoticed.

A small sick part of her hoped the girl took to the drink the way she had. She felt bad for the thought though. It got lonely, numbing herself with no company, but she knew she would regret being responsible for the monster she may have engendered tonight.

She fell asleep to thoughts of silken skin and warm embraces and never heard the silence outside her door that lasted maybe a little bit too long before Anna's footsteps led her away.

* * *

><p>Anna awoke to her first hangover, and it was awful. The hustle and bustle of servants getting up and meandering out of the catacomb like quarters around her was difficult to shut out. She brought her dangling hand up against her head to cradle it, letting go of the empty bottle she had passed out while holding.<p>

_What a sight I must be_ she thought.

"And how are you feeling this morning?" It was the voice of a woman who, Anna realized, had been looming over her the past few seconds.

"My head feels like I've been sleeping on a rock all night, so nothing new there, but I think Satan rubbed his fiery dick around in my mouth a little while I was out," she managed to say. She was so parched it hurt, and the dry cold of the torchlit cave was doing nothing for the chill that ran right through her.

The woman nodded, "well, that's why you're supposed to sleep with your mouth shut. No knowing _what_ could happen in there while you sleep. Have you heard that at least ten spiders crawl in yo-"

"Is there a reason you're ruining my life this early in the morning?" Anna asked, trying to muster up the resolve to get up and...oh god, smell a bucket of guts.

There was no way she was going to make it through the day.

"Oh, yes. The princess asked me to inform you that you are to stay in bed and get well, and that your duties today will be managed by Alphonse over there," she motioned with a jerk of her thumb to an especially miserable looking gentleman nearby.

_Well hail Satan's dick_

"Did her highness mention me by name?" Alphonse asked.

"No, I was told to just point at someone who I thought looked like they could handle it," the woman told him. "Oh, I was also told to bring you this," she said, handing Anna a glass.

"Wow," Anna said, her patience running thin as it was strained through her headache, "an empty glass. Tell the princess that's some real philanthropic shit she's got going on there."

"It had water in it, I may have gotten thirsty and drank it on the way down though," the woman admitted.

"You know what?" Anna asked.

"No, I don't actually think I do know what," the woman responded, genuinely curious.

"You're a real cunt is what. Tell the princess that I appreciated the ghost of the water, please."

"The princess is out for her lessons and is not to be disturbed," this woman had clearly never been insulted in her life, and not for lack of the world trying.

"What? How is she out of bed so early?"

"Cause she's not a little pussy bitch,?" Came Alphonse's suggestion.

"I don't actually remember anyone asking you," Anna shot back.

"Yeah you're right, all _I've_ been asked today is to do _your_ job."

"I'm pretty sure what you got was _told_ to do my job, so you go enjoy that along with the freedom to quit whenever you want," Anna was being bitter and unfair, she knew, but more than anything she just needed everyone to shut up and go away at that particular moment.

"You know what my normal job is?"

"Being a fucking dick to hungover people?"

"I chop vegetables. I'm good at that. I can do that thing where you chop vegetables really fast. I _like_ chopping vegetables."

"Wow buddy, way to aim high."

When Anna was finally alone, she slowly got up, stumbling against the wall and walking further and further back into the catacombs until she found somewhere that looked deserted enough that nobody would question a pile of vomit there.

Walking back, and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she found the nausea had left somewhat with the bile in her gut, but left a burning hunger. Her thirst was no better either, and what had initially felt like a light love tap from the devil himself had evolved into an acidic throatfucking that she needed to resolve, and fast.

She tried not to think about the night before, or the strange feeling of embarrassment at her dismissal. It was, after all, what she had wanted.

And yet, for those brief moments, she had felt so close to the princess. She had spilled her heart out, a stupid thing she regretted doing, but she had done it and for some reason she had thought there might be some mutual connection between her and the girl.

But she was still a slave, still sleeping in a cold dungeon, still just as much a stupid, hopeful, hopeless little girl.

She wandered towards the entrance to the servants quarters. It seemed she was going to need to get a drink of water herself.

* * *

><p><strong>Well shit Anna, that got kinda heavy there, like what the fuck<strong>


	8. Chapter 8

"Magic," Ansgar told her, "is energy."

Elsa nodded, trying not to yawn. Last night had been a night of light drinking for her, for which she was thankful, but she hadn't had a good night's sleep regardless, and now her eyes threatened to droop shut.

"Stay with me here, this is important," her teacher said sternly. "Now, there has been some debate as to where the energy actually comes from."

"Isn't there like an energy stream that flows through all things or some hippie bullshit?" Elsa asked skeptically.

"Fortunately, no, that's just hippie bullshit conjecture. What we currently suspect the case is, is that there is an energy basin that exists amidst all things."

"So what's the difference?"

"Well, for one thing, there's not really anywhere for it to flow, so it just kind of sits around mostly like water in a tub, superimposed over our own dimension. Generally it stays there, one might imagine dormant, until such time as it is used by sorcerers, whose connection to magic you may think of as leaks in this tub."

"Only, we get to decide when and how to use our magic, it doesn't just flow out willy nilly, so is that comparison _really _accurate?"

"Y..eees...fine, alright, think of sorcerers themselves as a crowd of tremendously disturbed individuals huddled around the tub, with their fingers plugged into the leaks, occasionally uncorking the water and just kind of watching how it splashes. Every so often, people come by and tell the sorcerers to cup the water that leaks out in their hands and splash it on other people until they die-"

"Alright, fine, I'm sorry I questioned your metaphor."

"It was a simile, but thank you nonetheless. So as you may have guessed, we believe, currently, that even though there are many manifestations of magic, it all likely comes from the same base energy, the same raw magic. And so, by understanding this, we begin to paint a picture as to how this force can be used to alter the world around us."

"You say it's energy, but I don't have to freeze vapour in the air, I can make ice appear from nothingness with a bit more effort. Ice isn't energy, it's stuff. Where does that stuff come from?"

"I am aware of a scholar, supposedly brilliant but I didn't speak enough German when I met him to know for sure, who has made a convincing case of energy and matter being interchangeable."

"So you're saying you can turn stuff into the stuff that makes stuff do stuff?" Elsa was definitely too tired for this crazy German shit.

"Precisely. It is my belief that when you call upon your magic, you bring in magical potential, from the overlaid dimension, that you turn into frozen water."

"So if this energy has so much potential to be and do anything, why are there so many manifestations of magical talent, and why is it such a challenge for us to cross between them?"

"No one knows," Ansgar said, shrugging. "Honestly, we haven't even begun to guess. However, many scholars, most of whom aren't even sorcerers themselves, have written of the possibility of a sorcerer, who would have to possess exceptional innate power, to be able to emulate other forms of magic."

"What do you mean?" Elsa paid attention now, at the prospect of no longer being confined to mere ice magic."

"Well, you say you can freeze water that already exists. Tell me, what exactly is happening to that water when you do this?"

"It's freezing?"

Ansgar gave her a withering look. "That's a bullshit answer and you are a smart ass, try again."

"I don't know, I'm making it colder?"

"Exactly, you are taking heat energy from the water. Now, as you should know, cold and warm substances, even in the same state, behave differently."

"I didn't know that at all Ansgar, because who the fuck teaches physics to a princess?"

"Compared to frankincense, physics lessons are a pretty damn good gift, I'd say."

"Look, can you just tell me what all this is leading up to?"

"Wind. You aren't a wind sorceress but, if you move the temperatures in the air around, you can make wind, which is what I mean by emulation, okay? And no, don't give me that look, you know we have to start small and build from there. Also wind is a great power, I've known some fantastically dangerous wind sorcerers. Especially for how quickly they could make fleets move across seas."

"I heard all the wind sorcerers got killed off like a hundred years ago and no new ones have ever shown up."

"Maybe they all got killed off because people knew just how _dangerous_ they were, ever think about that?"

"I think your lessons are going way too slow."

Ansgar rolled his eyes.

"No, seriously, all of this stuff sounds fascinating and whatever, but let me apply it."

"You are nowhere near ready to apply it, the last time you tried you broke your leg and delayed what could have been a productive lesson."

"And by could have been, you mean it wasn't, because it would have been _this_ lesson."

"You know that _this_ is the lesson from which you could potentially glean the secrets of healing yourself, right?"

"No, because you've been talking about core physics and I don't know how to apply that to biology. Creating simple water and moving energy around is one thing, producing complicated body tissues is another entirely, as I'm sure you were going to be lecturing me on in a minute."

_Well shit_ Ansgar thought, _she's been spending too much time around me, she's starting to sound more smart and less ass_

"Alright, you've got me there. I will tell you what I know of Raphael's process, if he is anything like the other healers I have known."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"We are getting literally nowhere with this. Now, healing is arguably the most complicated magic. Magic manifests with an intelligence we cannot account for, and our best guess is the strange link it seems to form with the psyche of the sorcerer, hence it getting unstable during emotional periods, its manifestations in the arcane whispers all sorcerers hear, and the constant hallucinations all sorcerers are subject to every second of every day."

"Wait _what?!_"

"I admit I was fucking with you on that last one to make sure you were paying attention. But seriously, we have very little idea as to why magic ever acts with the direction and intelligence it does, even taking into consideration the link it has with our minds. There was once a sorcerer who could pick locks with his magic. How does magic know what locks even are, or why they should be picked? The sorcerer didn't know about picking locks, but his magic allowed him to pick locks."

"Was he any good at it?"

"Picking locks? No, he was terrible, I saw him try it once and it was just painful to watch. His magic was fantastic at it though, and it made him a wealthy man before the steady drip drip dripping of the clap got to him."

"Wow, I'm actually speechless right now at what you just said to me."

"Dare to dream."

"So if it's so complicated for Raphael to heal, how do we suspect the magic knows how to do it?"

"For the longest time, nobody had any idea. We had theory after theory, but the closest we ever got was that maybe these sorcerers had some innate understanding that colored the magic's ability. It was when someone pointed out that no healer who could heal others has ever been able to heal over distances, that they require direct contact with the subject, that we began to suspect that healing did not require the knowledge contained in the mind of the sorcerer, but in the body. After all, it was reasoned, our bodies heal themselves just fine without anyone really knowing how _that_ works, it would stand to reason that the knowledge is contained in there somewhere. Plus, as I'm sure you've realized, our control over magical expression lessens exponentially over distance, so a procedure as complicated as turning energy itself into structures as complex as flesh would require direct contact."

"So I have to touch myself if I want to heal?"

"_Really_ Elsa?"

"Ew, dude, come on, you _know_ that's not what I meant," Elsa lied, hoping she could back-peddle over the slip.

"We both know it was. Speaking of which, I hear things are coming along splendidly with your slave girl."

"Wow, okay, of all the people I wouldn't talk to about this, I wouldn't talk to you about it the _most,_ you Creepy. Old. Wizard."

"I'm just saying, you would likely be able to advance your studies further with a clear head. Also, don't call me a wizard, you'll never know how much I hate that word."

"Can we go back to the magic lesson yet?"

"No, this actually seems to involve way less lip coming from your end, in every sense of the sentiment-"

"Fucking jackass-"

"Besides, as a fellow melon fan, I find myself quite bitter about your sheer lack of dedication to anything you seem to have set your mind to recently."

"Fine, I won't mouth off during the lesson, will you shut up about it now?"

"Much better."

"But I would still like to learn something more practical. The theory's killing me Ansgar."

"Alright, fine. I have been pondering your not-really-an-exoskeleton and a thought occurs to me. You can move ice around with some force, in addition to just creating it, correct?"

"Yes, I can actually move it around pretty fast. I was practicing ice spears a little while ago, they were really cool."

"Okay, but say you applied that to your armor?"

Elsa lit up. "Oh _shit_! Oh that's _such_ a good idea I can't believe I didn't think about that!"

Ansgar smiled back. "C'mon," he said, "let's go practice this outside."

* * *

><p>At a good distance from the town, to the east of the hilly fields that separated the castle from the harbor where the edge of a small forest was a brief walk away, they came to a stop.<p>

"Okay, this seems as good a spot as any," Elsa said.

"Yes, it doe-wait, no, hang on. There's a gigantic pile of rotting animal guts over there. Let's relocate, I can already smell it."

-Oh my fucking God Anna you are dead when I get back-

_Good, I've always maintained that that girl needed a good spanki-_

-Really? Now? Of all times? Come on.-

_Hey bro, I'm thinking with _your_ dick here, you can't always hold me accountable._

A short distance away, they came to another stop, this time satisfied with the location.

"Okay, so while I'm sure you are raring to go, I'm going to have to insist that we take this one baby step at a time. There is a tremendous amount of power at your disposal that can easily bring you to a dangerous state that may not be so easily reversible."

"You mean you're afraid I'm going to go too fast and run into something." It wasn't a question.

"Obviously."

"I'm insulted."

"Elsa, have you _met_ yourself?"

"Fine, we'll do it your way. But please don't make it _too _boring?"

"It's going to be _absurdly_ boring for the next half hour, I assure you. But it is necessary."

"Fuck, fine..."

"Good. For now, I want you to try and punch a hole as far into that tree as possible."

"Holy _shit_ fucking _yes_ I will do that!"

"I knew you'd be amenable."

Elsa ran over to the tree. It had a trunk a little wider than she was, which really wasn't saying much given that Elsa looked like she'd been hand crafted by the loneliest white guy on Earth.

"Okay wait I have a question, because I'm hoping you've figured this one out. The...uuh...wow we really need a better name for this not-really-an-exoskeleton..."

"Hypodermic Ice Layer?"

"That's not even remotely easier to remember. Anyways, my point is it doesn't protect my skin, and it's too unwieldy to put a block of ice _over_ my fist for each punch as well as under."

"Yes, I have considered this. Try and intersperse the ice with your skin."

"Oh, cool." Curls of ice spread about Elsa's body, lacing her skin with a gorgeous tattoo of brilliant white.

"Nnnfrgnnnf," she said.

"Yes, I imagine you are now realizing that I meant for you to only do this over the end of your fist, on account of needing to be able to move in general."

"_Mmmmmmmf_!" She exclaimed, hoping fruitlessly that her immobile face could display her irritation. It couldn't.

"I sincerely hope that is the sound of you regretting a great deal many things, this one in particular."

"Mhmm..." Elsa admitted dejectedly. The ice fizzled away slowly, so that it would allow her skin to go back to normal without tearing.

"Okay, that was a little embarrassing," she admitted.

"It was. Now, bring up your Hypodermic Ice La-"

"Yeah yeah, I got it," she said, feeling her magic well up through her.

She brought her fist back, and then gently tapped it against the tree.

"I consider myself a patient man Elsa, but I would still like to know what the fuck that just was and why there is not a hole in the tree at this moment."

"Look, it's scary punching trees, okay? All my life, making my body run into things really quickly has hurt, I'm trying to get a feel for the idea that this wont."

"Well please get a feel faster."

"What happened to baby steps, dickhead?"

"Yes, _baby _steps. These are like fetus steps."

"Okay, I'm gonna give it two more goes to get used to it, alright? One more soft one, then a punch as hard as I can with no magic. _Then_ I'll do the magic."

"I should have brought lunch with me, this is genuinely going to take that long."

"You're right, you should have, I'm actually pretty hungry. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I couldn't find a bottle to hold your milk in on time you fucking baby, now stop stalling and punch the fucking tree!"

"Jesus, okay, okay, I'm punching the tree."

Elsa gave it another soft hit. Nothing so far. She pulled back and put some force into her punch. There was a crack that scared her, before she realized it was the sound of the solidity of her fist connecting with the tree, and that she was still fine. Not wanting to risk Ansgar's wrath, especially now that she felt pretty reassured with her own power shield, she finally swung with all her might and was satisfied with the small echo she heard, neither her fist nor arm shaken in the slightest. All the force had gone into the tree, leaving a dent deeper than a normal punch could ever hope to create, even at her low level of physical strength.

Grinning with confidence, she finally made to test out her power. She felt her arm, felt how the ice at the back of her elbow could be moved and manipulated. She pulled back, and as she punched she pulsed some of her magic into it. It was clumsy, and she overshot with her magic what her arm had been expected to do, but the crack of wood splintering and giving under what felt like such low effort was enough to get her heart pumping like mad.

She pulled back and this time she felt confident enough to put a huge amount of magic into her swing. Not all of it, of course, not even close. She knew that could just as easily tear her arm off and send it flying through the forest, but there was still a lot of magic that she ended up dedicating towards driving her arm forward.

Her arm went through the tree like it was warm butter, dragging her with it slightly and bonking her nose against the bark, but she didn't care. She didn't even have to look at Ansgar to know his expression mirrored her own gleeful visage. She hooked her hand against the other side of the trunk and pulsed her magic sideways, her arm ripping through the trunk as easily as before, half of the tree now missing from where her arm had torn it. She sent a backhand through the wood, chopping the young tree in half and standing back as it groaned and fell to the side of her and Ansgar with a thundering crash.

She hadn't realized how hard she was laughing. She had never even considered the potential her magic had until this. She felt high. She felt drunk. She felt like a God. Nothing had ever felt this good, and she wanted _more_.

"Ansgar," she said excitedly while turning away from the forest, "this is awesome, but spot me a second. I'm gonna try something."

"Elsa I swear to God if you're about to try and fl-" he didn't get to finish as Elsa burst off the ground in a spin so rapid he worried for a second that the G-force might tear her blood from her veins, before she steadied herself for a second, upside down, and then crashed back into the ground.

Sighing, Ansgar made his way over to her. She was fine, of course she was, and already standing up from a fall that would have broken her neck without her armor. His worries about her blood were somewhat founded, he noted, as he saw blood fountain out of her nose.

"Elsa, is the blood coming out of anywhere else? How does your head feel?"

"Id feels laig I hid id on duh groud," she moaned. She was fine. She frosted over the cuts in her nasal passage, and snorted the rest of the blood out.

"So for starters," Ansgar said, "I'm getting a little tired of being interrupted while I'm talking."

Elsa didn't even bother defending herself.

"Second, you can't fly. Nobody has ever been able to fly ever, why would you try? Everyone knows it's just not something people, sorcerers included, get to do."

"But I can control the ice in me so easily! Why is it so hard to fly?!"

"Because you can control the ice easily while you're doing shit you're at least moderately used to doing! The problem is, Elsa, even for you things like punching come more naturally than flying."

"But I can levitate ice fairly accurately, why is it so hard while connected to me, when it should be at its easiest?"

"Mainly because you can't actually levitate ice that accurately?"

"What? Yes I can!"

"Alright, tell me Elsa, could you open a lock with a key made of ice?"

"Obviously."

"I mean without touching it, using only your powers to manipulate it."

"Oh. Well, no then, clearly I couldn't. Not even close really."

Also, as I'm sure you noticed, manipulating ice under your skin is ideal in quick bursts. I imagine it felt pretty fucking uncomfortable to have a solid mass pushing around inside you consistently like that. All things considered, that was fucking stupid and dangerous."

"Alright, Christ, I'm sorry, I just thought-"

"No, you didn't think, you-"

"Okay holy _shit_ do _not_ say that to me, I fucking _hate it_ when people say that to me!"

It occurred to her how loud she had just gotten just then.

There was a pause.

"You uh...you wanna talk about it?" Ansgar asked.

"I'm sorry, it's just something my dad used to do to me all the time and it's like, how does that even make sense, you know?"

"You sure you don't wanna talk about it?" He was teasing her.

"Fuck off."

"No no, we were making some real progress there Elsa, what was that about your dad? Dads usually come up in stuff like this."

"I said fuck off Ansgar."

"Look, a lot of people have problems with their dads. Hell, a lot of people have problems with your dad in particular, it's okay."

"I hate you so much."

"Yes, but if you ever need someone to talk to about how much you hate your da-"

"Look, I'm just pissed that I couldn't fly. I _really_ wanted to fly."

"Yeah. I know. Happens to all of us, trust me, we all start out hoping that some day we'll be able to fly... Hey," he brightened up suddenly, "I bet you can still run really fast if you practice it. C'mon, you know that'll be fun."

Elsa smiled back. "Yeah," she said.

And in a puff of dirt she burst off towards the forest. He'd been right, she was really fast.

Ansgar swore and ran after her. She'd gotten the hang of that sooner than he'd thought.

Elsa continue speeding towards the forest, and then at the last second jumped up and gave a pulse towards the nearest tree, curling into a ball.

The curve of her back punched through it effortlessly, sending it whirling a few meters high before it crashed back down.

And still she went, blasting through three more trees before she felt herself digging a long streak through the dirt of the forest floor.

Feeling much better, laughing even, she stood up through the foot of earth she'd buried herself in. She took a deep breath of air, looking around and dropping her smile as she came face to face with Anna.

Who looked terrified once more.

_You moron, you scared the shit out of her! Again!_

-What the fuck is she _doing_ out here?! How is this my fault?!-

_At least _smile_ at her, or do something to show her you aren't some sort of killing machine that just eviscerated a forest!_

Elsa smiled. It was forced and she could tell it was horrifying even without Anna's eyes growing wider and her lip trembling.

"Please don't scream," Elsa pleaded.

_Wow, that's definitely going to make it better, I bet she's in the middle of not screaming already_

"I'm sorry," Anna said, sounding extremely sorry and even more frightened. "I was just getting a drink from the stream because I was thirsty and magic is just...I'm just not used to-" her voice cracked and Elsa's heart broke with it as she realized how much she'd shocked the girl.

This was new, and it was unexpected. She had never felt such an intense need to stop another person's sadness. She had never experienced the ferocity with which she wanted to be the person to make this girl smile, and it hit her so hard she almost shared in Anna's frightened sob. How could she be responsible for the tears on that beautiful face? How could she be causing such sadness in the world?

And without thinking, Elsa hugged her. And even though Anna froze up at first, it was still the best thing Elsa had ever felt, and eventually Anna relaxed back into it, and Elsa's heart leapt at the feeling of two arms reaching around her back.

She pulled back and stared at her slave girl, opening her mouth to say something when she spotted the bruises on Anna's arm, revealed by the way the loose sleeve had slid up during the hug.

And her blood boiled.

"Uh...should I go?" Asked Ansgar.

* * *

><p><strong>One thing I found interesting as I wrote this was that this world sort of accidentally turned into a warning supporting the whole "you can't solve all your problems with magic" thing that I've actually always been critical of, because I mean it's literally magic, why wouldn't it solve all your problems, right? But now it seems as though I need to concede that this world could not work without that maxim, and it's telling that a planet inhabited by people who are on the cusp of Einstein's famous formula are still shitting in holes in the ground. Maybe I'm just forcing it harder than my misunderstanding of 11th century country placement, but whatever. Who knows eh?<strong>

**To StormBreeze: Thanks for the review. I promise Elsa's bratty attitude will be kind of fixed as much through love as it is through merciless physical pain.**

**And finally, I would like to apologize for the Avatar reference, I just started watching it, and it seems like my inability to stop enjoying children's media now that I'm a grown-ass adult has extended even to that.**


	9. Chapter 9

**This chapter is dedicated to the feeling of accidentally wishing your American friend a "merry September 11th" while you're still a little drunk from last night. Sorry bud.**

**To those of you wondering, I want to promise that Anna _does_ actually gain some agency later on. Not in this chapter though, this chapter is like the opposite of either of the girls having any agency whatsoever.**

**Also no, Elsa does not have a dick, it was a crude metaphor.**

* * *

><p>-It's not like I should even care that much-<p>

_Of course you should care! She's _your_ slave!_

-Exactly, she's my _slave_-

_But yours nonetheless. It's an insult._

_ -_Insulting what? Some toy I was given on my birthday?-

_ It's your job to look after your own._

-Peasants hurt each other all the time-

_Then I'm sure it wouldn't trouble you much to go hurt one yourself_

-I am not going to bring some violent wrath on my father's servants just on the off-chance one of them may have hurt Anna-

_You _know_ they hurt her, those were finger marks_

-Maybe she bruises easily-

_Maybe you're a fucking coward_

-Stop that! Stop trying to goad me into...-

_Into what?_

-I don't know, whatever hedonistic agenda you're always trying to stuff down my throat-

_I'm sorry, sticking up for your people and having sex _once_ with _one _person is hedonism now?_

-We both know that's not the full truth of either of those scenarios-

_Fine, sticking up for one person, and having sex a whole lot with them. Wow, look at how quickly that completely didn't become all that extreme_

-I'm not responding to this and that's final-

_At least have the decency to make sure she doesn't get bruised anymore_

-She lives a rough and tumble life as a slave girl, bruises are part of the fun-

_And I'm sure that's why you got so mad you yelled at her to tell you who hurt her_

-It was a lapse in judgment-

_No it wasn't, you just don't have any experience with the range of emotions that involve caring about somebody who isn't you_

-Exactly. Lapse in judgment.-

_You're disgusting_

-That's rich-

_You're that too. You are rich and powerful and spoiled and you're running away from this because you're afraid of having to accept what it means to be up here in your castle getting fed three meals a day while there are people a stone's throw from here that literally live in shit._

-Wow, when did you become the shittiest philanthropist? The lack of self awareness in everything you just said is painful. I wonder, do you actually care about all that, or do you really only just want me to go hurt someone?-

_A warning, then. At _least_ give the staff a warning. Makin put a lot of effort into making her skin that nice for you, it is a pity that you would sit idly while all that work goes to waste._

-Fine. That I will do.-

_Good._

And Elsa found she was already standing in front of her father's office.

-I'm really getting predictable-

Makin and Idun looked up as Elsa entered the room without knocking.

"Ah, afternoon Elsa," Makin smiled.

"Makin? Jesus you're still here? Don't you have a kingdom to run?"

"I have war games to play," he said happily, "and a competent council and son to manage my affairs at home. How goes the training, by the way? Ansgar tells me you punched a tree."

"I did," said Elsa, smiling at the memory to cool herself down from her previous temper.

"That all sounds quite dangerous," Idun said, no worry in her voice whatsoever.

"Can't be much more dangerous than war. On that note, how go the war games?"

Her father looked up from his place at the corner of the room, "they go well. Settes has broken its allegiance with the Southern Isles thanks to Raphael's discovery, good news for us. With splintered factions, we stand a better chance at the world stabilizing to another stalemate."

"So I may not have to fight?" Elsa wondered.

_Forcing every last bit of hope you sounded like you had_

"I wouldn't count on it yet," Idun said with a frown. "With the posturing the Southern Isles has been doing, it's still in our best interest to rally support and launch an attack on them. Only time will tell."

"Elsa," Agdar said, "I'm sure you know it's been coming, but-"

"Yes, I'll fight."

"Thank you for that interruption, but I meant in an offensive."

"And I meant yes. We both knew it was coming. I'm sure I'll appreciate the chance to spread my wings a little."

Her father smiled at her. "Now if only I could convince Kristoff to be half the man you are."

"That turn of phrase never gets any less weird each time you apply it to me. Also, I have a favor to ask." It occurred to her that mere days ago, she would have never brought up Anna around multiple people of her own free will.

_Mere days ago, you wouldn't have brought her up at all_

"I'm sure I have favors to spare," Agdar said, cautiously.

"Nothing big, but I have found bruises on my slave girl that I suspect were planted there by the fingers of your servants."

They both knew it was beneath her father to deal with these trifles. They both knew he owed her one anyways at how easily she'd agreed to her combat role, something she hadn't wanted to seem too eager about.

"You can bring these things up with them yourself, you know. They're my servants, but you _are_ still royalty."

"And yet, here I am, asking that the order come from you. I'm royalty, but only the king cannot be ignored, and I'd rather her skin remain unblemished."

"Well well, what's got you so bold so suddenly?" Asked Idun.

"Maybe it's the tree I felled with my bare hands?" Elsa was unsure herself. She only knew she wanted her claim to the slave girl to be more stated. More absolute. More open.

Makin chuckled at that. "I regret missing that, young one. You are becoming most impressive."

"Agreed, very well done Elsa," Agdar said softly, "and I will have a word with the head of staff. Maybe have your girl relocated from the kitchen, too."

Elsa tried to ignore the lurch in her gut that 'your girl' evoked. It was a strange feeling to think, but it was a good one nonetheless. Warm and addicting.

Makin nodded at Agdar's words, adding, "that would be good. I put a respectable ten years of oils into that girl's complexion, it seems a waste to have her mixed in with the blood and guts down there."

Elsa nodded as well, saying her thanks before excusing herself.

Idun watched the door close behind her daughter for a moment, before turning back to the table.

"You have a taste for gifts, Makin," she said.

"It is a talent of mine, I like to concern myself with the needs of others," he responded with a smile.

"On a more important note," Agdar cut in, "how long should we expect it to take for Ramzi to be 'discovered' by the Southern Isles?"

"A few weeks. Word has only just today been sent out from the castle. We will have to be patient before we may take our next step."

"We can be patient," said Idun. "I'm sure those weeks will fly right by."

And they did.

* * *

><p><strong>Five Weeks Later<strong>

The butcher was always the last man in the kitchen, just as he was always the first. He had long ago eased into the routine of frying up Elsa's steak as he moved about putting away the knives and polishing any missed spots on the counters and tables. It was a calming time for him. Time in which to be alone and to think to himself while he cooked in the silence of the night.

He didn't turn when Ansgar entered the room. There was no respect he wanted to pay to that man.

"The time has come, my dear man," Ansgar told him cheerfully.

"Find someone else," he said, eyes glued to the piece of meat sizzling in the fire pit.

"I'm afraid it has to be you," Ansgar replied, tossing a small pouch to the counter behind the butcher that clinked when it landed.

"I'm not risking Elsa's wrath. I got lucky last time, and I don't want to do it again."

"And you would risk mine instead? And yes, I saw your handiwork. Bruises to the arm? It was a pretty sorry excuse for what I paid you."

"You aren't a sorcerer. You don't make magic, you unmake it. You don't scare me, little man."

"Well put, but I'm going to have to come clean with you here. The threat I make doesn't come from me, it comes from Agdar."

"What business does he have with slave girls and butchers?"

"He has this business, and that's all you need to know."

The butcher turned to look at Ansgar. "The answer is no, and that's all you need to know."

Alright," Ansgar laughed, holding his hands up, "you got me. There is something else you should know." He reached into his breast pocket and produced a small lock of hair.

"We found her."

The butcher's face betrayed nothing. He stayed perfectly still, looking at the brown curls in Angar's hand. Ansgar took it as a sign to continue. "She's fine, she's where you left her last. She'll be where you left her last when you go to see her. We want the job done tomorrow."

The butcher nodded, very slowly, very carefully, eyes finally looking back to Ansgar.

"Good man. I promise, Elsa will know nothing."

"A promise from you isn't worth the shit off my boot. Now get out of my kitchen."

"I'll just go ahead and pretend I didn't hear that. You have yourself a lovely life," Ansgar said as he walked away smiling.

* * *

><p>King Alexander was seated across from Raphael, both of them pondering the state of things in silence, when Hans was brought to the room with two guards, who stood silently at the entrance.<p>

"Ah, here is he is," Alexander said warmly. "How was the journey?"

"Miserable," Hans admitted with a distant smile, walking towards the table they sat around, "and I was also in chains."

Alexander shrugged, "well, forgive us that you don't come across as the most trustworthy of people."

"I believe I will forgive that," Hans said. He made Alexander uncomfortable as shit.

"Tell us, what brings you here?" Raphael asked.

"Mostly being disowned," Hans admitted.

"Yes, I heard about what you did," Alexander said with a frown.

"My condolences," Hans replied with sincerity. It had been a singularly disturbing thing to hear about.

"Err...yes. Heard you found out about it by reading the paperwork. Old Amaury didn't even have the courtesy to tell you himself, eh?"

"I'm sure he would have. I had stolen into his office where I discovered this news. I then discovered this," Hans said, producing the parchment that had brought him all this way, "and I decided my loyalties had become entirely more fluid than they may have been previously."

"Well let's see it then," said Raphael. Hans spread the parchment out on the table, the ink had gone somewhat runny.

"It's in a bit of a state," Hans admitted. "I left with too much haste to find proper protection for my time at sea. No matter though, it is legible. It is a correspondence between Amaury and Agdar, king of Arendelle. It would appear that the theft of Ansgar was a hoax."

"They mention Ramzi here," Raphael said, reading over it. "That fuck, he's in the Southern Isles, no wonder they move to attack us."

"So Makin is in on this little plot as well," Alexander said, pondering the implications. "So they have made a war and are attempting to gather allegiance from the surrounding nations of three continents over to only two sides. That's a messy plan at best."

"To what end, I cannot say," Hans told them.

"No doubt they both plan to double cross the other before it's over," Alexander mused.

"Then should we simply wait until their greed gets the inevitable best of whatever perversion of scheming they've cooked up?" Asked Raphael.

Alexander shook his head. "Obviously, whatever the plan is, we have set ourselves up as targets by disagreeing to fall into our allotted allegiance. Amaury's assault would fall easily," he said this last part to Hans, catching him up. "Our neighbors surrendered with less pressure than was previously thought necessary. Their forces travel now to join our own. I imagine your father has not been informed of that?"

"He has not, as far as I know. He, and presumably Agdar, are likely under the impression that they will deal with you easily."

"Hm, what luck. What of the sorcerers we have found?"

"No word either. How many have you found?" Hans asked, curious.

The king smiled, "no less than three."

"I'm impressed."

"Unfortunately, they are a ways away, and the secrecy required in their travels makes their journey a slower one," Raphael said.

"Indeed. We had been previously expecting a landslide victory against Amaury's forces, but this intelligence you bring us changes everything. We now find ourselves with a much closer force to deal with in Agdar. I am unsure as to why he would not have pressed the attack himself earlier, but I'm sure they reasoned it out amongst themselves as best they could. Whatever the case may be, our victory against the Southern Isles may frighten Arendelle into action against us. We cannot survive a second invasion, not while we fall shy of our full brunt of sorcerers. Were they here, this would be a matter of pressing the attack, but for now we will have to consider our survival."

"We take Ansgar," Raphael said.

Alexander glanced up at him. "Explain."

"Amaury's force travels due east, likely to approach from the south so they can gain their footing and avoid our superior navy, which we are, of course, going to keep up between us and Arendelle. That presents Ramzi to the south and Elsa to the west. With a second null-caster like myself, we would have the ability to render both the sorcerers powerless on the two fronts we find ourselves defending. That is a huge boon when our armies swell from three surrounding countries. More importantly, Ansgar is, by all accounts, one of the most educated men alive. He is not sitting idly by in Arendelle. He is training the princess, and last I heard Elsa's already tremendous power has been focused in terrifying ways. With Ansgar's allegiances here, assuming we act quickly enough, Arendelle's sorceress will not be given the time to become a threat that Ansgar cannot deal with while fighting on our side."

"A plan like that would be risky," Alexander said. "If Ansgar is truly invested in this scheme between kings, he may be liable to simply switch sides on the battlefield."

"Then if that is the case, we merely lose an advantage we wouldn't have had anyways, but it will still keep him away from Elsa. If it's such a risk, we could always kill the man when he arrives. Null-casters are hardly sturdy against men with blades."

"I know I'm not really part of this chat anymore, but I'm curious as to how you plan to steal Ansgar away from under Agdar's shrewd nose," Hans said.

"That is a roadblock I find myself unsure of how to bypass, I admit," replied Raphael. "Agdar would not barter with Ansgar, and the man is likely under careful watch. Even the precedent of his first kidnapping was a hoax, and Amaury is not half as clever as Arendelle's king."

"Agdar would not be easily fooled," Alexander mused as he read over the letter Hans delivered again, "but his daughter does not have a quarter the mental fortitude he does."

"He seems to be convinced she does," Raphael said.

"Yes, and that is one area his judgment clearly evades him. The girl is a silly little thing who spends her days cussing, drinking and lusting naively after that German pet Makin gave her for that ridiculous birthday ceremony they threw. Word is she hasn't even taken girl to bed in all this time, much less drawn blood with her own two hands. A virgin in every sense. I would stake my life on her father having hid the details of his plotting from an innocent thing like her, even with his misplaced trust in her competence."

Raphael smiled, "and if she doesn't know of the plot..."

"She doesn't know of the extent of Ansgar's importance," Alexander completed. "This letter mentions a wedding in Corona. It would seem Agdar is taking the family down bearing gifts, and leaving his daughter in charge with Makin and Ansgar to advise her. It seems he wishes to give her a chance to test her mettle. A ballsy move in a time of war."

"If they even plan for there to _be_ a war."

"I am astounded at the level of trust between these nations," Hans said, not seeming to react in the slightest when he was ignored. "Seriously, he's just leaving two people from two other countries to hang out with his daughter?"

"So the wedding is when we strike," said Raphael. "When Elsa is left to her own devices."

"Or vices, as the case may be. What would you be willing to bet the poor girl hesitates with her slave because she's in love?" Alexander said with a smile, only half serious.

Raphael laughed, "surely not. That would be too cliché even for her."

"It is worth a shot though...we take the girl and offer an exchange? She's not likely all too well guarded. Lord knows, she probably even wanders the town from time to time."

"I think I would wait on that one if I were you. Perhaps, come the wedding, we see how she behaves with the girl and act then? There may be other vices, other fancies left unguarded that are more reliable."

"True, but the girl is still our best shot. Nothing is more reliable than the stupidity of a person in love."

"I would hate to be the man to deliver _that_ message. Trained or no, a vexed sorceress is a vexed sorceress."

"I'll do it," Hans said. "Always wanted to see Arendelle. I'd take the message to Elsa."

"You have already done enough traveling, and the record of your allegiances is poor enough, we don't need you spilling secrets to Arendelle."

"What secrets would there be left once I spilled the beans on the slave girl? And for that matter, if they decide to kill the messenger, what have you lost?"

"The boy makes a good point," Raphael said, "even if it's a fucking creepy one."

"Hans, I'm going to be honest with you," Alexander said, "I've heard some downright scary stuff about you. I haven't spent my whole life in the comfort of a castle. I fought for this throne. I have seen battle. I have been to prison. I've seen some real shit. But you? You really make me fucking sick, right down to the very core of my being."

Hans smiled back. "Yeah," he said.

"For the services you've provided here, you will always have a place in my kingdom, but I won't pretend watching you sail far away to Arendelle to present the ultimatum isn't a thought that fills me with glee. We need this trade to happen, and that will take some bartering skills. My one condition on you delivering this message is to please, for the love of God, be normal about it for once in your life."

Hans smiled.

* * *

><p>Anna knocked gently, opening the door to Elsa's room without waiting for an answer. As usual, the princess was huddled up in the middle of her bed looking the worse for wear. Her hair was still perfect though, which Anna had decided was bullshit ever since Elsa had found a way to keep it in place while she slept by using her powers, and maintained each day she saw it like that that it was still bullshit.<p>

"Morning sleepyhead," she said to the girl with the perfect hair, knowing damn well it was the evening already.

"You know damn well it's the evening already," Elsa groaned, trying to ignore Anna's cheerful disposition.

"I also know damn well that it's not being sleepy that's confining you to that bed," the girl retorted as she brought a glass of water over.

Sipping it gratefully, Elsa didn't bother defending herself. "Dad threw a party over something he didn't explain to me, some success on the whole war thing."

Anna nodded, moving around the room to pick up discarded clothes and an empty bottle of port from the ground. "War is always a party," she agreed absently.

"What is it with my maids never leaving me alone about my hangovers?"

"Don't go comparing me to Gerda, I am a thousand times better at not being The Absolute Worst than she was."

"You can still be a pain sometimes," Elsa said, smiling, "but yeah, Gerda was fucking horrible."

"In fairness to her, sometimes you just _have _to know, right on the spot, what life would be like if spiders could scream."

"Jesus why would you remind me about that, I couldn't sleep for two days."

"God I know!" Anna said, as she began dusting.

Elsa drained her water and leaned back into her pillow, her eyes never leaving Anna. "You know, I hear there's a sorcerer that can control bugs with his mind."

"Don't tell me that shit Elsa, that's awful, I don't want to think about someone sending spiders after me."

"Nah, I asked Ansgar, apparently spiders aren't technically considered insects so Ansgar doesn't think they'd be controllable."

"That's some bullshit and you know it. Spiders are totally insects, I mean look at them."

"That's what I said but he was pretty adamant about it. I'm on your side though, there's no way spider's aren't insects."

They settled into a comfortable silence as Anna carried out her morning routine. She would clean, and occasionally bring glasses of water to the blond as she watched Anna go about her chores. It had become an easy part of Anna's life, one she looked forward to.

And she had grown to like the feeling of Elsa's eyes on her. She knew how they wandered when Elsa thought she wasn't looking, and it felt better than she had thought it would to feel so blatantly wanted. It made her feel full and cherished.

It made her feel like Elsa hadn't been doing a whole lot more than just staring these past few weeks, and she definitely wasn't sure how she felt about _that_.

_Maybe she just really likes the maid outfit_ she thought. It was a pretty cute outfit, she had to admit.

It was with her mind full of such thoughts that she forgot to be more subtle about the angle she leaned to as she dusted a particularly challenging corner of an armoire.

"What the fuck is _that_." Anna froze, slowly turning to face Elsa, who was sitting up in her bed now.

_Shit!_

"Uh, nothing," Anna tried hopefully.

"It doesn't _look_ like nothing, Anna." Oh God Elsa sounded _mad_. "It _looks_ like another bruise."

"I just slipped and-"

"_Anna_."

She felt herself start to choke up. She hated crying in front of Elsa.

"Please don't..." she said. Elsa was walking towards her now.

"Let me see it."

"It's nothing, come on Elsa, I don't-"

"I told you to let me see it." Elsa's voice was cold and dangerous. There was no argument in the face of that voice.

Trembling, Anna lifted the tear in her uniform, revealing the dark skin on her abdomen.

Elsa nodded.

"Please don't worry about it. All the servants tell me not to tell, and I don't want them to-"

"Stay here."

"Elsa?"

"Stay in this room until I come back."

"Please don't do anything."

"Don't worry, nothing bad is going to happen," Elsa lied as she walked out the door.

A trembling Anna chose to believe her anyways.

* * *

><p><em>Kill him<em>

-No, but I _am_ going to hurt him-

Elsa cast her magic out around the castle. She had been practicing the past few weeks, and had found that if she could freeze water vapour, she could interact with it in other ways. The humidity that drifted through all nooks and crannies of the castle sang to her, telling a tale of each bump and sway and each person and motion.

And there, in the kitchen, a large man preparing a piece of steak, as usual. His big, meaty fists the only match in the castle for the disgusting mark on Anna's side.

_I want you to make him die_

Growling, Elsa tried to bury the sentiment within her as she moved across the hallways. She could not act irrationally.

Well, she could act a _little_ irrationally, she figured, as her fist iced over.

* * *

><p>"Oh, by the way, I never got to ask how it went with the butcher last night," Agdar said to the sorcerer reclining across from him. They had settled into an early evening of scotch and war stories in front of a warm, crackling fire.<p>

"Ah, that's right! It went splendidly. I was actually about to say, I can feel a strong source of magic on the prowl as we speak." Just as Elsa was able to listen to the water in the air, Ansgar had long since discovered that, as a sorcerer who dealt in sorcery, he was able to sense magic.

"Excellent," the king said smiling. "Seems she's got some of my iron in her after all. I hope she enjoys herself."

"You and I both know this night is going to end with her crying like a little bitch. No offense, but it will take more than that to harden your daughter."

"None taken, I know how she is. She's a clever girl, but my is she green as grass."

"Perhaps send your eldest down on an errand to 'discover' her in a minute or two. I sense within him a person who could be of some comfort to her. Not to mention, we wouldn't want Elsa taking the credit for this one."

"That _is_ a good idea, I will have a servant come up with something."

"So I take it the wedding is still a go, then?" Ansgar asked.

"Of course. Alexander won't hesitate to take the bait now that he knows. That man and his shitty little nation continue to be a thorn in our sides, doubly so with Hans defecting. That boy is not right in the head, I'll tell you that much."

"I hope you don't overestimate your daughter," Ansgar said. "Don't forget, we may be wagering with my life here."

"That is why we torture her so. She will be ready when the time comes. The only poor judge of character is Alexander. He will regret it when Elsa is upon him."

Ansgar nodded. He felt confident in his student, in the unimaginable power he sensed broiling within her. Smiling, he raised his glass to Agdar's, the small clink the only sound in the room.

"Wind her up," he said.

Agdar smiled back. "Let her go."

* * *

><p><strong>You know what my favorite thing about cliffhangers is?<strong>


	10. Chapter 10

**The music I listened to while I wrote this was nothing, because that shit is distracting**

* * *

><p>"You know what I wish?" Raphael said to Alexander.<p>

"What do you wish?" Came the response.

"I wish it were feasible for us to just hold their plan ransom. Threaten to tell the world what they're plotting in return for some peace and quiet."

"Why would you wish for that?"

"To avoid war? Something along those lines."

"War is so much fun though, Raphael. It changes the face of the world so rapidly. You can't just be a king and not pine for war." Alexander took a sip of his drink. He wasn't sure what it was, scotch or whiskey or something he had little time to care for, but he appreciated it nonetheless. It was probably a fine vintage from a good year. "No, with war, we get to change things. Besides, theirs is not an invasion that hinges on us speaking out against them. If we go unchallenged we will become a threat the likes of which they have never known, and I believe they are beginning to come to terms with that. It would not matter whether or not we spoke out about their plan if we were able to simply invade and crush the continent in one fell swoop. War is inevitable now"

"I suppose that's a fair point," Raphael conceded. "I would still reveal the plot to the world though. Save us a few enemies being made by any of the allegiances our two super powers have started gobbling up."

"That is also a fair point. I may do that. I had honestly hoped to ponder it further. I like to stay a few moves ahead and I'm being honest with you when I say that's just too many countries for me to keep track of."

"We'll work it out."

"Indeed we will. You know what _I_ am having some fun puzzling my way through, though?"

"Enlighten me, Alex."

"Agdar must have worked out our plan for Elsa. He's sharp, and he knows we know of his plot. He'll suspect us to move against him. And yet, for all I've heard, he still plans to make for this wedding. Further, it would seem the slave girl still regularly strolls out and about, so I would imagine he hasn't even bothered telling Elsa what we plan. I mean, it wouldn't be difficult to do so while still keeping his little allegiance with Amaury a secret, and he certainly wouldn't tempt her wrath by telling her and still forcing the slave to remain as bait."

"Perhaps he's goading you into it? Does he have a plan you haven't considered?"

"He may very well," the king said. He felt as though this were something he should have worked out by now. The drink was making him slow, he decided. That was okay, he could bounce it back and forth between himself Raphael. Raphael was a clever man. Well suited to the banter so often enjoyed between kings and their sorcerers.

Sorcerers in general, he decided, were pretty clever. Perhaps he _was_ underestimating Elsa. Still...

Raphael thought for a moment, then said, "Elsa will not take well to our kidnapping her slave girl. Perhaps her father is trying to set her against us."

"That does make sense, yes. I wonder if she fights better while angry?"

"Anger is an easy emotion to manipulate when it comes to pushing the limits of magical potential. I believe Ansgar himself actually has countless papers on the subject."

"Oh Agdar you bastard," Alexander laughed. "Well, it seems our little plan has become a gamble."

"Wasn't it always?"

"More-so now. Now it is wholly about whether Elsa can muster the force of will to do some damage to us, open a hole in our defenses through which we might be overtaken by the army that advances."

"Her father wouldn't waste a sorceress on that, would he? Much less his own daughter, I'm sure."

Alexander chuckled at that. "I saw Agdar in battle once, you know. Back when we were all fighting to secure the northern Africas for Makin. The glory days."

"I'll bet that was something."

"It was. They used to think he was a sorcerer once. That or a demon. They say he once had his arms in shackles and so he used his teeth to eat straight through a man's neck to kill him. I recall the greatest challenge he has ever faced was dispelling the rumors of him having magical blood, with ferocity like his. Him and Makin were legends, though I'm sure you've heard the songs."

Raphael nodded. "So you're saying he's the type to sacrifice his daughter on a whim."

"That is exactly what I'm saying. I am not, however, saying he's the type to sacrifice a sorceress on one."

"So he thinks Elsa can be unleashed on us and live to tell the tale?"

"Yes."

"So it really does come down to whether or not it is us, or him, who is right about the girl."

"It might, but I have to admit I'm not a gambling man, Raphael. You forget, we'll have an advantage here."

"We'll have her beloved in chains."

"Exactly."

"So we threaten her death and hope Elsa is every bit as smitten as we'd imagine?"

"Death? Good God no, she'll call our bluff in a second. With the girl dead, we're gambling with a far more upset sorceress than I would want to risk. Dead, and there is no reason our own deaths shouldn't last for days themselves. Harmed, now that's a different story. Because then, even if we lose our bet, Elsa will dispatch people quickly to get to the girl."

"So you're saying we never even bother to threaten her death because you don't want to be tortured?"

"Oh no, we absolutely threaten her death, but we just threaten it gently, behind the very real threat of torturing the slave, and also lie through the teeth about it. But you're right, I absolutely do not want to be tortured to death. I have a number of lifestyle choices I've made that aren't conducive to even the most remote possibility of screaming in agony for days on end."

Raphael pondered this. He looked down to his glass of hard liquor.

"You uh...you got anything stronger?"

"Yes, actually, but it's usually for special occasions like stripping the finish off the floors during renovations."

"I'll take it."

"I believe I will too."

* * *

><p>Elsa kicked the door to the kitchen off its hinges, appreciating briefly how it splintered into pieces in front of her before she strode in, her eyes fixed on the man at the end who was beginning to spin around in surprise at the disturbance.<p>

She clenched her fists, feeling them harden. The voice in her head had long since dissolved into an angry buzz that permeated her being.

"Oh fuck," the butcher whispered.

"You have no idea," Elsa said, and landed an open palm into his massive trunk that sent him flying back into the prep table, crashing against pots and pans.

"Wait," he pleaded from the table, apparently just as sturdy as he looked, "please, it's not what you think."

Elsa kicked the table hard enough to send its smooth metal surface sliding out from under the man, who went crashing to the floor with a grunt. She strode towards him.

"Please listen! They'll hurt her if-"

She grabbed his neck, hoisting him up effortlessly as he gagged from the pressure. Her mind was empty, replaced by rage and red vision.

"_You_ hurt her!" She yelled, throwing him back to the ground.

"No! You don't understand, I-"

A kick to the chest silenced him as he slid across the floor. He was tough, though, standing up quickly in spite of the force she'd put in to him. His lung had nearly collapsed though, and he sucked in huge gulps of air.

"You have to...stop..." He was gasping for breath. "My daughter, she..." He whooped again as Elsa began to walk towards him.

"Needs me..." Elsa wasn't listening, hadn't heard a word he'd said, and it finally dawned on him that there was no appealing to her better nature.

Elsa swung a fist back as she approached, and this time the butcher readied himself and ducked to the side of her swing. He put out a kidney shot towards the princess, hoping to escape. His aim was off, though, but he still connected solidly with Elsa's midriff.

Elsa gasped, she hadn't remembered to armor her full body and the punch went through in all its brutal glory. She doubled over.

"Please forgive me, I can't leave her she'll starve witho-" the butcher was interrupted as Elsa let out a scream of pain and anger. Her mind blared.

He backed up to flee, and then stopped.

Elsa finally stood back up, her stomach a mess of pain. "I will _never_ forgive y-" and then she saw it.

"Oh fuck," she whispered. The pain and rage drained from her in a single moment.

_Oops_

"Oh fuck oh fuck," she wasn't thinking clearly. She ran over to him.

"Oh God no, no no no, please no. I'm sorry," there were tears at her eyes now as she looked at him

The ice had traveled from the wall in a glistening white spike, emerging from his stomach painted red.

The butcher's face contorted with pain. His fingers hovered, shaking near the wound. Too painful to touch, too painful to not want to nurse.

A sobbed ripped itself from Elsa's throat. "Oh fuck," she said. She was crying now.

"Please...fuck...please I'm so sorry I didn't mean to!"

A small whine of pain was coming from the man's mouth. His fingers tenderly touched the ice protruding from his gut.

Elsa gasped, and remembered to dissipate the ice inside him, letting him fall to the ground

_Dumb fucking move_

Blood exploded from his nicked aorta, coating Elsa's nightwear. Elsa let out a strangled cry of horror. She forced herself to kneel down in front of him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she sobbed. "Fuck, wait, I...I can fix this!"

_No you can't_

"I'll...I'll stop the bleeding, okay?" She looked to him for any kind of indication, any reassurance that she was doing the right thing. He sat there, his breath coming in quick, short bursts, in too much pain to even scream out. There was blood coming out of his mouth.

Elsa tried to concentrate, to get her magic to work. Bits of frost and snow were jetting out of her hands and she knew the room was cooling down. "Fuck!" She exclaimed through gritted teeth.

_You aren't going to save him_

-No, no I'll..I'll save him, I can make this better, I'll stop the bleeding, he's fine he'll be fine-

_You just shredded his stomach and emptied his blood into it, even if you control the bleeding he'll die of toxic shock, and if not that the infection will get him_

"_Shut up I said he's fine!_" Elsa screamed aloud.

The butcher looked up at her, managing to say, "p-please," before gasping in pain at a contraction of the ruined muscle in his gut.

"Oh god please forgive me," she begged him.

She couldn't believe what was happening. How could she have caused this? This was all going so wrong, so horribly wrong. It felt like the world was caving in on her.

"H...help?!" She choked out. It was a quiet, strangled thing. She tried again louder.

_Nobody will hear you. You can't save him._

-Please help me-

_He is going to die_

Tears were leaking from the butcher's eyes, occasionally managing gasps of pain as the acid from his stomach began to leak out through his muscle tissue.

-Oh God he's in so much pain please tell me how to make this go away-

_Finish him_

-W-what?-

_I said finish him. Give him the mercy kill._

Elsa's teeth were chattering together as she looked into his eyes and asked, "sh...should I k-k-kill you?"

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back as he sobbed softly.

"Marie," he whispered to himself, "I'm sorry." Then he looked up at her, slowly, choking out, "d-do it."

Elsa was sobbing right back at him, wracking her lungs with great bellows as she hyperventilated.

"I'm... so... I'm so sorry..."

He stared at her, unable to even articulate his hatred. Elsa closed her eyes, nodding her acceptance.

There was no forgiveness here.

_Make a blade. I will walk you through this, just do what I tell you. Make a blade in your hand_.

Elsa brought her hands together, trembling and shooting ice around stupidly.

_Elsa. Take a deep breath. No, listen to me, take a deep breath. That a girl._ _Now hold it. _Hold _it. Okay, now release the breath. Now try again._

The blade formed, with a grip for her to hold on to. It was sharp, sharper than anything else than could be found in the room.

_Now make a clean incision from the adam's apple to below the ear, following the curve of his jaw; either side will work_

She leaned in to his neck. It looked soft and vulnerable and the idea of cutting it made her sick. She subconsciously covered her own neck with a protective hand.

"O...okay, I'm-I'm gonna..." She couldn't finish.

He stared her in the eyes, finally mustering a full sentence. "I will beg the Lord to spare me your presence in Heaven."

She closed her eyes. Then she wiped the tears from her vision and opened her eyes again, pressing the blade to his throat.

_No! No pressing, bring it to the right of the adam's apple and drag._

Elsa corrected her hand, trying fruitlessly to stop it from shaking. She mustered all the resolve she could and pressed her hand downwards and then jerked back sickened at what she realized she was doing and at the convulsion of pain the man made against her. The knife dissipated, and only a small trickle of blood was coming from his neck.

_You missed the vein dumbass_

"Fuck!" She shrieked. The butcher was crying now, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Please," he begged, "please it hurts _so much_."

"Fuck I'm sorry... One second," she said, another blade forming in her hand.

_Try not to fuck it up this time_

Elsa shakily wiped the blood away from the man's neck, realigning the blade as best she could against the incision she'd started. She pushed it in, forcing herself to continue, dragging it against his skin. There was so much more resistance than she thought there would be, and the butcher was jerking and grinding his teeth below her, trying to shut out the feeling of his skin being slit open. She fought the waves of nausea, practically able to hear the tearing she felt against her knife.

There was a burst of blood that hit her square in the face, and she jumped back, screaming a low, horrified scream.

She watched the brief spasms of the man before her for a stretch of time that felt like eternity before he finally was still and the spurts from his neck that had been drenching the ceiling above them grew less and less powerful, until finally it was reduced to a drizzle and she knew he was dead.

She leaned her head back against the freezer door behind her, her sobs so strong she couldn't even make any noise with them before she finally breathed in with a wrenching gasp and began howling in earnest. Elsa slid slowly to the side, down the door, curling up and shaking in fear and misery.

She didn't know how long she stayed there before big, strong hands hoisted her up into a sitting position and then clasped her warmly against a body.

She didn't have to look up to know it was Kristoff. She just clutched at his shirt, burying her face against his chest and crying some more. And she stayed there for a very long time again, sobbing and apologizing to no one in particular.

And when she had calmed down, his grasp against her loosened and she looked up into his eyes. And those eyes were forgiving.

"Don't worry," he said, "I was worse my first time. Dad made me finish a duel."

"I...I didn't mean to...It was an accident..."

Kristoff nodded. "Well I don't know what that feels like. But I know what it's like when it's on purpose, and it's bad."

"Oh God what do I do? I feel like I'm in a completely different world right now." She was begging for answers, for guidance. She felt more lost than she ever had. "How am I supposed to make this better?"

"You don't, really. You just keep going. It's not really going to get better, but it'll get...farther away, I guess? I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how it'll feel."

Elsa nodded. She realized she'd left a stain of tears on his shirt. Fortunately, he was wearing black, and the blood she knew was there was difficult to make out.

"H-how long have we been here?"

Kristoff shrugged. "Half an hour, probably."

Elsa nodded. "So uh...about him..."

"Yeah, we gotta clean this up. I can deal with him, for the most part. You need to get the blood off yourself and into new clothes. I'll send a servant to your room to get a different nightgown."

Elsa's eyes widened. "No, wait...Anna's in there...she'll know..." She looked up at Kristoff with pleading eyes. "Please, I can't let her find out. I...she can't know."

Kristoff sighed. "I'll handle this then," he said, standing up. "I can tell her to go to bed and make up some excuse as to what's occupying you. We'll tell her you talked to father and father fired him."

"Wait," Elsa said. "She can't...she was being hurt by him. The other servants, if they think she told me, I don't know what they'll do to her."

"Jesus Elsa...what the fuck have you gotten yourself into? All this over her?"

"I'm sorry," she said, trying not burst back into tears. "I just wanted him to stop, to make him feel like how he made her feel...I didn't think this would happen."

"Alright, look...I can set her up in the guest room nearest yours. It's been vacant for ages, so it'll probably be a bit dusty, but she'll be safe. Nobody would try anything that close to you, and you can figure out what to do with her in the morning. In the meantime, wash your face off in the basin over there, they usually keep clean water in it. I'll be back for you when the coast is clear." Kristoff made to leave, and Elsa almost begged him to stay, begged him not to leave her alone in the dark with the butcher's body, but she kept her mouth shut and watched him walk out.

She went to the basin. The water would be cold, she knew, but that wouldn't be of any concern. She took a trembling breath and plunged her face into it, scrubbing her hands around to try and clear off as much of the blood crusted onto it. She wished she had a mirror so she could be sure it was all gone.

When it was as good as she figured it would get, she lifted her head up, gasping for a breath. She looked down and realized she'd made a mistake. The basin was now a deep red.

"_Fuck_!"

Elsa looked around for somewhere to pour it.

_There is a blood drain in both sides of the room. That's why the floors are slanted slightly. Pour it down one of those, they drop into a current supplied by the moat and wash out to sea._

Elsa felt the ice grow under her skin, reinforcing her strength. She hoisted the basin, bringing it over to a grated drain and slowly drizzling it down. She did her best not to look at the corpse of the butcher, but couldn't help but notice a small trickle of his blood had already made it to the drain she was pouring the basin into.

-Oh god what am I doing...-

She heard footsteps approach, and ducked around the corner, reaching for the freezer door while peeking down the kitchen to make sure it was Kristoff, and not stepping out until she saw his face.

"Your face is still covered in blood," he told her.

"What _took _you so long?!"

"Anna was inquisitive. Also I did you the courtesy of filling a bowl with water back in your room where you can finish washing up when we're done here."

Elsa nodded. She wasn't about to argue with him.

"So what do we need to do? I don't think we can take him anywhere, the guards will spot a body being dragged out of the castle..."

"I have an idea, but it involves the freezer, which means you'll need to do some cutting because it's too cold for me in there.

_Let me do this_

-No...I can't...-

_Yes you can, you know it won't be permanent this time. We have a ways to go before we get there._

-...okay.-

And Elsa nodded to Kristoff and then she shut herself out...

* * *

><p>And when she came back there was a bigger splotch of blood around the drain and the offal bucket was full, and it wasn't like she could pretend she didn't remember. Her hands were soaked in blood. It went up to her elbows.<p>

Kristoff emerged from the freezer, looking at her with disgust.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Whatever. It's not like I didn't know she still talked to you."

"It's so easy...so easy to just...fuck, I'm sorry Kris."

Kristoff sighed. "Don't worry about it. I know tonight's not an easy night. Just...please don't do that again."

"I'll try."

He motioned towards the bucket with his head. "That's up to you, you'll have to pour it out. I hear the moat does just fine. I'm going to finish up with the wiping, especially on the ceiling where there're still some splotches, and then I'll finish wrapping the muscle and put it in with the rest of the meat. Fortunately we can hide the skin and the rest in the bone-bin, they won't be able to tell the difference in there and somebody will be in to clear it out by tomorrow."

Elsa nodded. "Okay," she said softly. She felt so tired. She just wanted to curl up and forget about everything.

She gathered up her will and picked up the bucket.

It was way too heavy.

* * *

><p>Elsa stared at herself in her mirror. Kristoff had been right. Her face was still filthy. Looking down at the rest of her naked form, she saw that the blood had bled through her clothes and painted most of her body with red.<p>

She grasped one of the clothes beside the bowl her brother had left her, soaking it and wringing it out. She attacked her body with it again and again, scraping the skin on her belly red and raw before it ever occurred to her to solve this problem with magic.

She stopped, and concentrated on the blood with her eyes closed, too tired to use both senses at once. It was mostly water. She felt it freeze against her skin, and then peel away and collect in front of her in a tiny ball that she lowered into the bowl. Looking into the mirror, she had expected at least some redness to remain, but her skin looked pale as usual.

She went to her wardrobe and began putting on a fresh nightgown. She reveled in the soft silk against her skin, longing for the feeling of something comforting.

And at that thought, she turned her eyes to the wall she knew now separated her and Anna.

-Fuck it-

She wasn't sure what she needed, but the bottles she had emptied already weren't helping. She made towards her door, and when she wrenched it open she saw Anna already standing there, hand poised to knock.

"Oh...Elsa, I-" Elsa grabbed the front of Anna's shirt and pulled her into a deep, long kiss, wrapping her other arm around the younger girl's back and pressing Anna into her. Arms snaked around her own back and clawed at her spine hungrily, and it felt so right, and Anna was so soft kissing her back, and she could feel their chests brushing, and the press of Anna's taught torso, and she could feel her curious tongue probing Elsa's lips, and she could feel the warmth of the butchers blood splashing against her face.

-_Fuck_!-

She pushed away from the redhead, the two of them gasping and staring at each other.

"Oh God I'm so sorry," she whispered for what felt like the thousandth time that night, and ran back into her room, slamming the door in Anna's face.

* * *

><p>And long after, Anna stood in front of Elsa's doorway, wishing she had the courage to open it back up again.<p>

She licked her lips, and was tired enough that she could convince herself they didn't taste like blood.

* * *

><p><strong>First Blood!<strong>

**Gained the Lead!**

**I think Elsa's the kind of person who would be annoying on Xbox Live**


	11. Chapter 11

**It is unfortunately easy for my finger to slip to the left one key and start writing about Elsa's torrid affair with ABBA**

**On a more serious note, it occurs to me that I hadn't kept myself entirely informed of FF's policy regarding extremely graphic violent and sexual content, which is a problem because this is the part of the story where we start to really get into the fun bits you don't want your kids stumbling upon and asking you questions you don't want to explain later like why are those girls kissing each other there and why do hearts still beat after being torn out of their resident ribcages. It turns out, FF's liberal stance on these things is that the Internet is no place for porn.**

**Which obviously means I'm gonna go right ahead and post this shit anyways. I've always been a rebel like that. I'm not sure how adamantly they moderate stuff like that, but I've never been one for huge risks, so I'm going to be putting this story up on AO3 in a bit so that even if it does get taken down, it can live on there.**

**TL;DR if this goes missing, find me on AO3**

* * *

><p>"Ah! Found it," Agdar said triumphantly, pulling the bottle out from its hiding place in the cabinet. "Now <em>this<em> was a good year."

"And what actually makes a year good for port?" Ansgar asked.

"A great deal many things, but I meant the year was good for me. The bottle always reminded me of that year, it's the year I killed my first man and fucked my first woman. Now that my youngest is at least halfway there herself, though, I think we get to crack it open finally."

"Finally."

"Indeed, we are the patient type thank goodness."

"Agdar, do you ever feel these little evening chats of ours are getting a bit self-congratulatory?"

"I thought that was the point the whole time," Agdar said, bewildered. "But this is especially a celebratory moment. We made great progress last night. That was some effort that paid off right there, and now we can revel in the delicious afterglow of a well laid plan."

Ansgar grinned, "we _are_ pretty damn good, I have to admit."

They were interrupted by a knock on the door that Agdar answered happily. A servant came in and placed two plates on the small table between their chairs, uncovering two bite-sized, steaming hot pieces of meat, covered in enough of their own juices that they gleamed in the light of the fireplace.

"Here it is," said Agdar, sitting down as the servant left the room.

"I admit to a certain morbid excitement at this absurd little indulgence of ours," Ansgar replied, eyes glued to his plate. "What of the rest of it?"

"The servants would never guess in a thousand years, so it's their rations for now. But I found myself far too curious to pass this up."

"Your son is quite the quick thinker, I'll give him that."

"Indeed, if we were less careful I'd have worried he'd figure us out. He continues to provide surprise after surprise for me."

"As does your daughter for me. I can only hope her moping about involves her furthering her magic on her own."

"I'm sure it will, she is a driven young thing when she needs to be. Now, shall we?"

Ansgar nodded.

They each speared the piece in their own plate, popping the meat in their mouths and chewing slowly, both lost in thought.

"Pork," Ansgar said finally.

"Yes, definitely pork. Looks like the rumors are true."

"Not bad pork, either. Sweet, almost."

"A little on the tough side, the man could have used some more fat and less heavy lifting."

"Well, maybe we can get Makin to groom you one special for your next birthday," Ansgar said with a wicked grin.

That brought a laugh out of Agdar. It also reminded him that the man had been shut away with the busywork of warmongering. He would have to entertain his other guest sometime.

Perhaps, he decided, in a few days.

* * *

><p>Three days since the incident. That was how long Elsa figured she had been in her room, and going on four as she looked out at the sun setting from her window. She was starting to get better, she knew she would be out and about soon, but there was one thing she needed to finish before she did.<p>

She took the knife from the plate of food the servant had last brought her. Not Anna, she had made it clear that Anna was to do no more chores, and sleep in the guest room.

Elsa's stomach growled as she pulled the sleeve back on her scarred, forearm. She was still scrawny, but the past month's lessons with Ansgar had been about sparring, and a small amount of muscle was finally beginning to show on her arms. She knew she should probably maintain it.

It had been tough for her to organize getting the amount of food her tremendous appetite demanded sent up to her room, especially since she had made sure all her meat was chicken for the past few days, and she paid the price as she felt her body weaken in the face of the malnutrition she had been forcing upon herself.

She grit her teeth as she dug the knife into her forearm. Fortunately it was sharp, and she managed a small incision across the thin limb before throwing the knife away somewhere on the floor. Frost immediately collected over the small wound, and she concentrated on it, staring and trying to ignore the pain. If she mastered this, she could finally stop.

If she had mastered this when she had first intended to, maybe she could have saved him.

She ground her teeth harder, pouring magic into the frost over her arm.

There! She finally saw it, the frost turning to flesh, stitching the wound back together. She took careful note of the sensation, remembering it, making it part of her. She extended the frost over her forearm, letting it become a thin layer of ice that quickly faded the scars on her skin from previous failed attempts.

It was a bittersweet moment, but she shut out the memory. She would not fall back into the self loathing it brought. Not anymore.

A gentle knock took her out of her musings. She didn't answer, staring at the door trying to will her guest away.

"Elsa? Elsa it's me," came her father's voice. "I'm coming in," he said. She didn't bother protesting.

The door opened and he stepped in, closing it behind him. Making no comment about the darkness in the room, Agdar crossed over to where Elsa sat on the bed, sitting beside her and gathering her up with an arm into a small hug.

Elsa rested against the comforting warmth. She supposed he knew. Of course he knew.

"It's not easy, huh?" He said, gently.

"It was an accident," she whispered. "I never meant-"

"Of course Elsa, of course. Don't worry, nothing will come of it."

"He didn't...have a family or anything, did he?"

"No," her father said, "none of the servants are tied to anything but their work."

"Kristoff...the meat...we-"

"I know. Don't worry, it was disposed of. Discretely. Your brother means well but...sometimes I think he's not the brightest influence."

Elsa nodded against her father's broad chest. "I think I'll be okay now. I just wanted some time to myself."

"Yeah, I was that way too. Don't worry about it."

"Dad?" She said, the worry about how to tell him what she was going to say next evident in her voice.

"Yes Elsa?"

"I, uh...I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can do any fighting...I'm sorry."

Agdar sighed. "Very well," he said, "but you know it may become inevitable if we are invaded."

"Yeah...I'll have figured myself out by then, I'm sure."

"Alright," he said standing up, deciding to leave the discussion mercifully short, "I'll leave you to it then. Will we see you tomorrow at breakfast?"

Elsa shrugged, but said, "probably...yeah. I hope so."

As he stepped away he said, "Oh, by the way, I have noticed there appears to be a slave girl who has taken up residence in one of our guest rooms."

"Yeah, I put her there... I'd be grateful if you could just let it be for now," Elsa told him.

"Very well, though if I could offer some fatherly advice, you should try and come to a decision on what to do with her sooner, rather than later."

For once, Elsa didn't complain about the invasion of her privacy. She simply nodded and said, "alright dad."

* * *

><p>Anna was back to staring at Elsa's door as usual, just fantasizing about knocking when, again, the door opened in front of her fist.<p>

_Son of a bitch_ she thought, looking up at the king.

He smiled at her, then turned back into the room, saying, "and speaking of which, it would seem you have another visitor."

_Son of a BITCH_

"Uuh..." Elsa voice came uncertainly from the dark room within.

"Come on Elsa, be hospitable." Agdar smiled, gently nudging Anna into the room. "Maybe you can coax her out," he said to her, chuckling as he walked away.

A silence stretched out between the two girls.

"Alright, come on in," Elsa finally said.

Anna let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and took a few steps further into the room. It was a mess, she noticed. There were bottles and plates and cutlery strewn about the floor, and a small layer of dust had already settled on everything.

She noticed how cold she was, and when she finally spoke it was to ask, "do you wanna build a fire?"

Elsa nodded from where she sat on her bed, knees curled up to her chest. She didn't seem to be moving though, save her eyes following Anna around the room like they usually did, so Anna set about piling the pieces of wood from their cradle into the fireplace.

When it was warm and crackling, Anna looked back up at Elsa.

"I'm sorry about..." Elsa trailed off, not seeming to be too sure of what it actually was that she was sorry about. Anna wasn't about to question it though. Elsa apologizing was a good start.

"Look, I just... You don't have to explain anything to me, I just want to hear you tell me the butcher was fired." Anna hoped she wasn't overstepping. Over the past five weeks she had developed a comfortable rapport with Elsa, and she was banking on that now. She needed to hear the words from Elsa, needed to confirm that the trust, and the feelings she couldn't deny any longer, weren't for someone who could hurt people.

Eyes squeezed shut, Elsa nodded. "Yeah," she said, "nothing else happened. They just fired him."

And once again, Anna chose to believe.

"Look I...I'm sorry about the kiss," Elsa continued, "I was stressed out and...I don't really know how to explain it-"

"It's okay," Anna said, "don't worry it was...y'know it was fine. You can do stuff like that."

"Well, I mean yeah, I guess I can. I just...it's not something I want to do just because I _can_ if that...makes sense?"

It did make sense, and it was not the answer Anna had been looking for. Truth be told, she had been hoping Elsa would take advantage again.

With a sigh, Anna realized she would probably have to take the initiative this time. Mustering up all the courage she had, she tried not to let her voice shake as she asked, "did you uh...maybe wanna get drunk and...do it some more?"

There was a pause, Anna held her breath again.

Then Elsa smiled weakly and said, "yeah...hah, that sounds like exactly what I want to do, actually."

* * *

><p>"They say the human body is a work of art," Makin told the king as they studied the paintings before them. They were in a room dedicated to the things. Unfortunately, as there was little else to do for entertainment, observing art was one of the more treasured forms of having fun.<p>

The whole era they lived in was a tragedy really.

"And who says that, I wonder?" Asked the king.

"Probably people who have never seen what comes out of human bodies," Makin said.

"I admit to some surprise at you of all people taking that view of it," Agdar said, "you're one of the better sculptors of people I've met."

"It's not sculpting, my friend. The human body is a machine, and most of what you put into it, inevitably, will wind up as shit in some way or another. Even if it's as air that you cannot breathe, water that you cannot drink, words that you cannot trust... I simply concern myself with the few things you can apply to a person that result in them becoming something better."

They moved on to another painting. This one was of a naked woman, a skeletal arm reaching out from pure darkness from behind her to grasp her shoulder. Agdar had always liked this one, even though art was something he rarely took it upon himself to ascertain the meaning of.

"Most of the strokes one may make upon a canvas are worthless. This room concerns itself with the few that have resulted in something better." Agdar was playing devil's advocate, he knew.

Makin turned to the king then. "What is it you want your daughter to become?"

Agdar thought for a moment before replying, "truthfully? A good person. I wish for her to become a wise and caring leader. I wish for her to find within herself a strong, intelligent young woman with a kind heart, and the determination to be better that all sorcerers possess. I wish for her to stand out as a shining example of what it means to be human. I truly and honestly wish all of these things for her, from the bottom of my heart."

"I suppose I should have asked what you _need_ her to become," Makin chuckled.

The edges of Agdar's mouth twitched up in response. "Yes. Now that would be one hell of a question."

* * *

><p>It was the first time Elsa had felt calm since the mishap with the butcher, and it occurred to her that she would have had a much better time of her past few days if she had done this earlier.<p>

She turned to Anna, who was sat across from her by the fire on one of the chairs they had pulled up, smiling happily through the fog of drunkenness.

"So tell me more about your magic," Anna said, her own words coming a little more loosely from her intoxication. She was trying to keep up, Elsa knew, and so she'd slowed drinking down so as not to kill the more inexperienced girl.

"There's not really much to tell," Elsa said. "Magic is just like...energy that we can pull out of nowhere."

"What's energy? Like I know what the word means but I don't think I get how you're using it." Elsa had forgotten she hadn't had the benefit of a real education.

"Energy is like... um, alright, do you know anything about grammar?" Elsa had no idea how she expected to explain this to a drunk slave girl.

"Um...sort of? I got a vague sense of it when one of the concubines, Esmeralda, was teaching me to write."

"Alright, well think of matter, like the stuff around us, as the nouns of the universe, and energy as the verbs. Energy is what makes matter do things." There was no way this shit was getting through to Anna, she was sure of it.

"So wait, if energy is what makes things happen, how come you can make ice? I thought that was stuff." Alright, maybe not. Smart kid.

"Yeah, that's generally true, but then some guy apparently found out that you can turn them into each other."

Anna eyes widened. "Wait, wait does that mean...are there any wizards out there than can make chocolate?"

"They're called sorcerers, and uh...maybe? I don't know," Elsa said, puzzled as to why this would come up. "What's so important about chocolate?"

"The concubines used to let me have chocolate sometimes, I remember it being the best thing I'd ever tasted."

Elsa gave her a look. "Really? That shit? You like that? Huh..." She looked around then, saying, "I think I actually have some I was planning on throwing away."

She crossed over to her dresser, opening the top drawer. "Ah! Here it is. Still good too, I think. All yours if you want."

Anna ran over, delighted, and Elsa gave the bitter treat to her.

"Oh my God, I never thought I'd see this stuff again," she said excitedly. She took a bite, grinned, and then devoured the rest in seconds.

And for someone born hundreds of years before the invention of chocolate that didn't taste like complete and utter shit, she was content as could be.

Elsa laughed at the antics of the girl before her, and then felt just drunk and confidence enough to lean down and wipe some of the brown smeared over the corner of Anna's lip.

And Anna felt just drunk and confident enough to lean up and kiss Elsa.

When their lips met, Elsa's mind went back to being the low, desperate buzz it so often was around Anna. She pressed against the younger girl's lips more forcefully, tongue probing out to explore that tantalizing mouth that had tempted her for so long.

It tasted like chocolate, and her mind went blank.

Feeling the ice form under her skin, she effortlessly lifted Anna up, the redhead's legs wrapping around Elsa as she was carried back to the chairs in front of the warm glow of the fire, their kiss never breaking. Elsa sat down, Anna straddling her waist, and with a light press to Anna's back the girl obediently leaned in and pressed her body against Elsa's.

She groaned at the sensation of Anna's breasts against her own. And she so very much loved how easily she could direct the girl with her hands. Her girl. She tried not to let the temptation of the thought overtake her. She wanted this to be fair to Anna, even though she so badly wanted to possess and own and dominate and _take_.

Her hands roamed over Anna's thighs and up her scruffy shirt, relishing finally getting to experience the feeling of the girl's fit, smooth stomach. Her body screamed at her to move her hands higher, but her mind blared in apprehension at the thought of taking things so fast.

All Anna had said was kissing, and against every fiber of her being she forced herself to obey that. It would be too easy to fall back into the mind of the girl she once was, that would have had her way with the quivering body on top of her simply because, by rights, it was hers to do with as she pleased.

She could feel Anna's fingers digging into her back with pure want, her mouth producing small mewls of desire that Elsa drank up greedily with her own. Her mind was a puddle of unfocused lust. She wanted this to last forever, but she felt her resolve to do right by her slave girl dwindling with each passing second.

Finally, she knew she had reached the threshold of her own self control, pulling away from the girl reluctantly. Anna stared at her in confusion with drooped eyelids, panting too hard and face too flushed to form the question.

"Anna I...this got a little more heated than I had thought it might," Elsa began stupidly.

"What?" It was all the redhead could manage.

"I think...I think perhaps it would be best if we stopped here for now," the words felt horribly wrong coming from her mouth.

Anna continued staring in confusion. "Why?" She asked finally, following up with, "I don't want to stop here."

It was extremely difficult to think with Anna so close to her face and oh god she was still pressed so warmly against her.

"You...Anna you're a slave, it wouldn't be right to take advantage."

Anna didn't hesitate this time. "Take advantage," she said.

"What?"

"I said take advantage, Elsa. I've seen you staring at me, I know exactly what it is you want. It's been over a month, have you seriously been holding off because of this?"

"I..." Elsa wasn't sure how to respond. She wasn't really sure of anything at that moment. "Anna, please, I...I don't want to risk forcing this on you."

"Yes you do. I'm your slave, it's entirely within your rights to do whatever you want with me. I _want_ you to do whatever you want with me."

"Anna, what are you trying to do?"

Anna responded by leaning back, reaching over to the sleeve of her shirt and tearing it off in one swift motion.

-Jesus- Elsa thought, -just what the fuck exactly were these concubines teaching her?-

"How long have you been waiting for this Elsa?" Her voice was low and seductive. "How long have you been staring at me, just imagining this moment, and now you refuse to take what you want? I'm yours." She leaned in, her mouth right beside Elsa's ear, taking one of Elsa's hands in hers and sliding it up over an exposed breast.

"And it's time to take what's yours."

Elsa had no hope of resisting.

Anna let out a small squeak of surprise as she was lifted and thrown down onto the bed. Her new-found confidence only extended so far, it seemed. Here she was in unfamiliar territory. Elsa stared down at her, her mind totally blank. No thought but desire, no purpose but to devour the young thing before her.

Anna's ragged pants were shredded in seconds, offering little challenge to the frenzied sorceress, who then took to her own clothes with the same ferocious attitude.

Finally, she slid a hand under Anna's back, and another under Anna's bare bottom, hoisting her up and positioning her further on the bed.

She reconnected their mouths, hungrily lapping at Anna, the previous duel they had had with their tongues now devolving into Elsa exploring her slave's mouth. Anna moaned into her, and then gasped as Elsa slid a hand between her legs.

* * *

><p>Anna had never experienced anything like the heat that consumed her, and at Elsa's touch she didn't even try to stifle her moans. She felt a finger slide inside her, igniting her core and making her arch her back against Elsa. Something soft and damp pressed urgently against her thigh; she realized it was Elsa, who ground into her.<p>

Elsa's thumb pressed up on a spot above where her finger was so distractingly probing inside her, and she broke free of the kiss to cry aloud. Her hands grasped at the bedsheets below her. She had no idea what to do, and so did nothing, instead letting Elsa's ministrations set her aflame.

She burned with need, gasping at the heightening sensations from Elsa's thumb circling around the soft nub of flesh that sent lightning bolts of pleasure through her. Something was approaching, some indescribable event that she was hurtling towards with uncontrollable intensity.

"E-Elsa," she began worriedly, "w-fuck! What, hah...what's ha-happening?" Her breath was coming in short, ragged bursts. Elsa didn't respond, her head buried in the bed at the crook of Anna's neck. She closed her eyes, her head tilting up in ecstasy as she submitted to the rapid rhythm, subconsciously spreading her free leg as wide as it could go.

Elsa slid a second finger into Anna and the redhead screamed as she was sent over a threshold of pleasure she would have never believed was possible. No one could have ever described the sensation to her. No one had ever even tried. There were no words to bring justice to the feeling jolting through her body, making her legs thrash wildly and her back to arch upwards. She clamped down around Elsa's fingers, the feeling of that thumb prolonging her pleasure with its wicked circles was so good it was nearly painful.

Her legs were tensed, a wet trail where Elsa was furiously pressing herself into. Suddenly, the blond froze up against Anna, crying out in what Anna suspected was the same pleasure she had begun to come down from. She brought her hands around Elsa's back, pressing the older girl against her as she jerked and writhed and her sex, pressed so hungrily against Anna's leg, twitched. Such small movements that Anna knew now were like earthquakes to her lover. Finally, she too came down from the high, filling her lungs as desperately as Anna was.

They lay there for a moment, just panting and gasping for breath and occasionally twitching as spare jolts of sensory electricity radiated about their bodies.

Finally, Elsa's arms slid around Anna, and she lifted her up again, a feat Anna was amazed at with how tired and weak she herself felt, and put the redhead beneath the blankets before joining her herself.

"That..." Anna tried, but it became clear pretty fast that she wasn't going to find the words anytime soon.

"I just want to clarify, that was entirely your fault from start to finish," Elsa said, sounding smug even while breathless.

"Hey, I'm fine taking credit for that. That was incredible. I...I didn't know feelings like that existed..." She hadn't known how to express the sentiment without sounding incredibly fucking stupid, so she hadn't bothered trying.

"Yeah," Elsa agreed, her arms snaking around Anna and pulling her closer. The press of her body felt so good and calming. "Yeah I gotta admit, you should have seduced me ages ago. Seriously, what took you so long?"

Anna smiled, retorting with, "I don't know, maybe it was your shitty attitude that threw me off."

"My attitude is just fine. Also turn around, I've been having this daydream where you press your butt into me and we fall asleep together like that."

"Oh yeah?" Said Anna as she complied. "And how long have you been harboring that particularly racy fantasy?"

"About thirty seconds," Elsa admitted. "All the other daydreams before that were a little more intense, but now I'm kind of just enjoying how nice this is."

Anna snuggled back into the older girl, feeling warm and safe, and incredibly comfortable because holy shit Elsa's bed was the softest thing she had ever felt.

Well, second softest.

Elsa drooped a possessive arm over her, pressing Anna against her body. Anna reached up, taking Elsa's chastely placed hand and placing it back over her breast for the second time that night.

"Whoa," Elsa said.

"What?"

"I dunno, I just realized that I can just...do this now."

"Do what? Grab my boob? Yeah, you can do that."

"I just always kind of imagined it was something I'd be doing to build up to mind blowing passionate lesbian sex, but it's actually just something I can do because it's nice."

"Boobs are nice," Anna agreed.

"No, but like...I can do it for the rest of the night!" Elsa gushed.

"Oh, right, that reminds me," Anna turned over once more and filled her hands with Elsa's own breasts, feeling the softness of them. "Never got a chance to earlier," she said smiling. Elsa would have giggled, but giggling was definitely not her thing at all, so she settled on a chuckle instead.

"Okay, I'm done now," said Anna. She turned back and they resumed their original position.

"Your bed is really comfortable, by the way," she added. She was tired, she realized. Lovemaking really took it out of you, it seemed.

"I'm glad you like it, I intend for you to spend a lot of time here."

"Good. See? I knew this would all work out."

"Yes, this _has_ gone surprisingly well. I can't wait to see what horrible thing has to happen in my life now to offset it."

"I know right? I've had that feeling all night."

"By the way, I didn't tell you earlier but I'm a little miffed that you doubted me about the butcher thing."

Anna sighed. "Don't ruin a good moment Elsa," she said, irritated. But she remembered the fear she had felt before when she saw Elsa storm off that night, and there had been _so much power_ in those hands that lifted her up and tossed her about the room like she weighed nothing. After some thought, she said, "but seriously Elsa, you...you would never hurt anyone...right?" She hadn't intended for her voice to quaver the way it did.

The arm around her gave a short, comforting squeeze, and Elsa said, "no...no of course not," so softly and so it was good enough for her.

"Alright," she said.

And Anna drifted off to sleep, her own mind as content and sated as the purring monster within Elsa's.

* * *

><p>"Tonight was a good night," said Ansgar. He was standing now, gazing into the fireplace of a room he so rarely visited, with company he so rarely kept.<p>

"It won't last," said Idun as she wrote away on a piece of parchment.

"Yes, I suppose you're right. Agdar and Makin are so ambitious and clever. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking they'll succeed."

Idun lifted her quill, feeling a great sadness overcome her as she dipped it back into the ink well, trying to think through the pain inside her to find the words she needed to put in the letter.

"I'm glad you understand, Ansgar," she told him. "I would never do the good men of this world the injustice of calling you a good man, but you've taken a step in that direction."

"You flatter me, you cold bitch."

"Is it so cold to love my family?"

"Condemning them seems a little frosty to me, yeah."

"I would rather be the cause of the deaths of all but one than sit idly by as Agdar drives every one of us toward our fates. I love him so, but you and I both know this is the only way."

Ansgar nodded, feeling somewhat guilty at his lapse in judgment. Idun was not in the mood for banter. Even now he could see the tears forming at her eyes, hear the break in her voice.

"I will take care of her. Elsa's upcoming trials may be inevitable, but I promise you I will show her how to stay alive."

"Thank you," Idun said, finishing up the letter.

"Don't worry," Ansgar said as he watched her stand up and ready the wax for her seal, "the Coronan sorcerer's mastery over his element is renowned."

Idun nodded, and strode from the room without another word, not trusting her voice to stay strong, not trusting herself to follow through with what she knew could never be undone.

* * *

><p><strong>Wellp, I've done it, I've taken the plunge and written smut on the Internet, in what is now the longest chapter by far. I want to take this opportunity to tell any aspiring authors reading this that while I agree with the tremendous amount of motivation there is out there encouraging you to just say "fuck it" and write something, writing smutty fanfiction is something that you can never undo in your own soul. This has been an immensely rewarding process in a number of ways, but the tradeoff is that it has become increasingly difficult to look the friends and family members I hide this part of myself from in the eyes now. I certainly don't want to get in the way of all the good writing people have the potential for, but it's important to remember, if you're anything at all like myself, that fandom is an emotion and it can be just as tricky as all the other emotions.<strong>

**More importantly we're about 4 chapters away from the end of part one, and two or three chapters away from the part where Elsa finally River Tams the shit out of this bitch like we all knew was gonna happen. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Derek Landy, whose brilliant writing has provided much of the inspiration for Elsa's evil mindbuddy, which is about to become really important really fast.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Now that Elsa and Anna have some vague form of a romance blooming, I am excited to find all the ways I can make it painfully unhealthy**

* * *

><p><em> I just want you to know I'm proud of you<em>

-I know-

_I also want you to know that I was right, sex is fantastic and you are complete shit for not letting us experience that earlier_

-Yep, I'm sure that's something _nobody_ on Earth is going to be rubbing in for the next few days-

Elsa looked down at the girl snuggled up to her. Her presence set off a thousand new feelings and sensations within Elsa, and there was a warmth she couldn't describe that made her feel full and complete.

_Oh, and that's another thing_

-Hmm?-

_All these weird fuzzy emotions you feel cascade over to me, you know_

-Aww, are you growing a conscience? That _must_ be scary-

_I'm just saying, if you're going to be a good influence on me, it's only right I get to be a bad influence on you_

-Well I got drunk and then had gay sex with a slave girl a few days after killing someone, so I'm probably like the poster-child for going straight to hell already-

_True, but have you really killed _enough_ people?_

-That got dark fast-

_Also you cried like a fucking baby the whole time_

-Wow, alright, I didn't enjoy killing him, is that really so bad?-

_Bad? No. Boring? Absolutely._

-You're really starting to worry me

_There are three things in this world I enjoy more than anything_

-I'm gonna have to listen to this whole diatribe aren't I?-

_Eating, sex, and senseless violence_

-Well, that's not exactly what I'd call the most cultured trifecta-

_So while you've got the first one down, and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt with how you proceed with the second, I'm still worried you aren't really going to let yourself shine in the senseless violence department_

-You haven't the faintest shred of decency in you do you?-

_We're two halves of a whole Elsa, at the end of the day you're lying in bed telling yourself to go out and hurt people. Maybe that says something about who you really are._

Anna stirred in her arms, waking up with a slight jump before seeming to remember where she was.

"Morning sleepyhead," Elsa said to her. The redhead groaned, rolling over and burying her face in Elsa's chest.

"My head fucking hurts," she whined, her voice muffled.

"It was your suggestion to get drunk," Elsa reminded her.

"Yeah but that was to get you in bed with me, I can't be held accountable for the things I did to make that happen."

"You're awful."

"I'm thirsty is what."

Elsa rolled her eyes, summoning some ice above her hand and forcing it to warm up. It had been a challenge to get the hang of, her powers involved ice and making water colder, and so those would always come the most naturally to her, but it made her happy to know that branching out was still at least technically possible. Most of it was emulation, manipulating ice to cause similar effects to other forms of magic. Some simple things she could simulate though, using her magic directly, though still in ways related to ice. Melting ice, for example.

She nudged Anna.

"Anna. Anna I made water, drink it."

"But then I'd have to take my head out of your boobs."

"Really Anna?"

The redhead sighed, which wound up being a raspberry.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't do that," Elsa said.

Anna finally turned her head to look at the ball of floating water above it.

"Well, you're obviously going to splash that on my face, even I can see that."

Elsa looked shocked. "I would never!" She lied.

"If you splash it on me you'll get your bed wet and it'll get moldy," Anna said.

"Exactly, which is why I wouldn't splash you," Elsa said, pretending the thought had occurred to her at all.

"Alright, I trust you," Anna said as she opened her mouth. Elsa slowly let the water trickle down, halting it occasionally as Anna closed her mouth to swallow.

"I think I'm good for now," she said eventually.

Elsa let the water drop, freezing it at the last second as Anna shrieked and jumped away. She let the icicle burst into vapour as she laughed at the redhead.

"You're a monster," Anna said. "Just for that I'm going back to sleep in your boobs until I feel better."

"We need to go to breakfast," Elsa said.

"Oh God, are you bringing me to the breakfast of shame?"

"The very same. Maybe you'll even get to meet one of Kristoff's girls."

"I think I'll just stay up here if that's all the same with you."

"Oh nonsense, you're coming to breakfast. Besides, my parents aren't that scary."

"They're a little scary, I don't want to dine with a bunch of royalty."

"You'll be fine, just make sure you don't take anything they say personally and occasionally joke back at them."

"I'm still not convinced, Elsa."

"Well you're coming one way or the other."

"I don't have anything to wear," Anna tried.

"You'll wear something of mine. I still have some clothes from when I was younger lying around I'm sure."

"I haven't bathed in ages," she tried again.

Elsa rolled her eyes, "you know I have a warm bath drawn every day in the connected room."

"Wait...doesn't that mean a servant's been through here?" Anna asked, looking somewhat perturbed.

"Yeah, they're usually in while I sleep, why?"

"Oh...do you think they saw us? Y'know, together?"

"Well...yes. Yes I imagine that is something they would have had to do. Is this upsetting you?"

"I don't know... I guess I just know enough of them by now, but they were always a bit hostile to me. I'm gonna be honest, I'm pretty sure they're gonna call me a ladder climbing whore now..." Anna said, a little dejectedly.

"Think of it like you were the one to finally seduce the ice princess. I won't have you skulking about being ashamed of what we did," Elsa told her, adding, "or are going to do, a lot."

Anna stuck her tongue out at her playfully, "well you certainly made your mind up on that fast, I wonder when I was going to be consulted on this?"

Elsa leaned down and nuzzled Anna's nose with her own. "You weren't," she said jokingly, "you're my slave. You just get to do what I tell you, remember? Your words, not mine."

"Guess I shot myself in the foot there," said Anna, planting a quick kiss on Elsa's lips.

"Not really, I'm sure it's a better job than cleaning rooms or dragging guts around."

"That's true. Hey, now that I'm in bed with the princess do I get to boss the other servants around?" Anna asked with a hopeful look.

"Don't be a ladder climbing whore, Anna."

"Not even a little?"

"I'm pretty sure dad would be very upset with me if I let you do that."

"I know you can convince him to change his mind about that," Anna said.

Elsa grinned. "I absolutely can. I wonder what _you_ can do to make me change my mind about _this_."

"Probably be a ladder climbing whore," Anna concluded.

Elsa smiled back, but said, "not now, though, unfortunately. Now we have baths and breakfast."

"I've never actually had a warm bath before," Anna admitted out of the blue.

Elsa's eyes widened. "Seriously? Oh man, you're gonna love this."

* * *

><p>"Mom, dad, Kristoff, this is Anna."<p>

Anna was treating to a table of knowing smiles, and the droned greeting of, "hi Anna." What a horrible family to have sex within.

It also occurred to Elsa just how annoying that really was as they sat down around the table, and a chair and plate were brought for Anna.

"Congrats on the sex, Elsa," Kristoff said.

"Thanks Kristoff, you too. Who's this?"

Kristoff looked around at the brunette girl guiltily. "I'm gonna be honest, I don't actually know."

She smiled anyways, then turned and softly said a "hi" to Anna, who she was seated beside. Anna nodded back, realizing this must have been a lonely meal for anyone not in the family.

"Anna, go ahead and help yourself to whatever you want. We kind of just do a buffet for breakfast," Idun said from across the table.

"Whoa, seriously? I can just eat any food?" She said, eyes wide with amazement.

Agdar smiled. "The perks of being with royalty," he teased.

"No kidding, I should have slept my way to the top the second I got here," Anna said. Agdar got a laugh out of that.

Elsa smiled at Anna, who was already beginning to shovel food into her mouth like a retarded squirrel, as Ansgar entered the room.

"Good of you to join us," said Agdar.

"I felt like today was a breakfasty kind of day," Ansgar said, "not to mention, I need to see you off on your trip Agdar." Then, "and hello Anna."

"Hi," Anna said back, uneasy at the presence of the other sorcerer, but still excited that a whole room full of powerful people were gathered around while simultaneously not treating her like shit.

Ansgar turned to Elsa saying, "and hello to you too Elsa, good to see you out and about again. Congrats on the sex by the way."

"You're still a creepy old wizard," came the reply.

"Sorcerer, and that reminds me, we have learning to do now that you're finally back with us."

Anna stiffened at the mention of Elsa's education. She didn't like the thought of Elsa learning to fight, learning to cause harm to people. She turned to the blond, eager to hear her response.

"I've changed my position on that matter," Elsa said calmly.

"I am well aware you don't plan to do any fighting, nevertheless the lessons carry on. It's always unwise to have untrained sorcery running amok. That's how people get hurt."

"Well, I can vouch for Elsa's competence with her powers, if it counts for anything," Anna said. She knew her influence in getting the lessons canceled was a long shot, but she felt some deranged need to try.

"We actually have a 'no details' policy regarding what our guests had to do with our kids to wind up at the table," Idun said.

Anna blushed, stammering, "no I-I didn't mean it like-" but gave up when she saw the conversation had moved on.

By the time breakfast was finished Anna was so full she felt like she would burst. She had never had so much food in her life. She had also gotten to confirm with her own eyes just how much food Elsa was capable of putting away. It was a little unnerving. When she pressed for an explanation as to how it was even physically possible for that much food to disappear into such a tiny person, Elsa explained that she digested food faster and more efficiently than normal people.

Magic was fucking weird, Anna decided.

When the table was all cleared, Elsa turned to her family. "So I guess today is when you guys leave for Corona, huh?"

"It is," replied her father. "In fact, we make for the harbor shortly."

"How long will you be gone?"

"A few weeks, mostly travel time. Don't worry, you will be left in good hands. Ansgar and Makin will be here to guide you, and I trust that you can manage the few affairs that should come up competently. All the war business I'm taking with me, so you'll be dealing with disgruntled dukes and complaints from trade companies over tariffs."

Elsa nodded, "I'll make sure not to change anything unless I'm bribed well enough."

"That's my girl."

They said their farewells then, and Anna watched trying not to feel awkward.

Elsa turned to her when all was said and done. "I'm going to be busy most of the day, but I'll have the evening free," she said.

Anna smiled, saying, "that's alright, I can keep myself entertained. I'll probably take a stroll or something, avoid the castle so the chefs don't start making fun of me." She had already gotten one or two looks from the waitstaff as the table was cleared.

"Well, you'll find that the weather today is simply lovely," Agdar said with a contented smile.

"One might even say it's perfect weather for melons," Kristoff added.

Elsa smiled at him. "I hope you shit yourself in public today."

The unnamed girl buried her face in her hands beside Anna. "I should go," she muttered.

* * *

><p>Several hours later it inevitably came to pass that Anna was nowhere to be found, and Elsa was growing quite worried about it.<p>

It didn't help that her increasingly frantic search around the castle Anna should have returned to was forced to be cut short by a servant informing her the disgraced prince from the Southern Isles had turned up on her doorstep with what he said was an urgent message.

Angrily stalking through the door of the throne room, Elsa ignored the glares she received for her lateness from the various peers of the realm, gathered to bare witness to what they had presumably heard was going to be a wildly entertaining court affair, and sat herself down in her father's throne, now vacant. The room quickly rose for various bows and curtsies to be made, and that one asshole whose job it was to announced the name of everyone entering the room did his job expertly, saying the ever-loving shit out of Elsa's name.

The notorious prince was in shackles, escorted by no less than six guards who were all eying him nervously. Elsa found herself more pissed at the interruption than nervous, a surprise for her. She chalked it down to the fact that these days she could crack the young man before her like an egg and not so much as break a sweat for her efforts.

"Alright Hans, I'm gonna be honest with you here," she started, "I was actually having a seriously great day up until about twenty minutes before you arrived, and that _still_ would not have been a good time for the likes of you to ever show your face here."

Hans looked at her, then down at the shackles, and then back up. "Were the shackles really necessary?" He asked.

There was a gentle murmur through the room, and that one asshole made a show of using his booming voice to remind Hans to say 'your grace' after every sentence.

Elsa held her hand up to silence him saying, "no, fuck all that title stuff, I'm not in the mood, save it for when my dad gets back. Hans, the shackles are a policy we have just for you, you're kind of on our 'shackle on sight' list except the list is only you. That's fine though, because your mouth is not shackled so you can go right ahead and tell me what it is you're here for and then I can throw you in the deepest, dankest prison cell we have forever."

"Well, for starters I would like to remind you not to kill the messenger," Hans began.

"We'll do rock-paper-scissors over that one later."

"Second that I'm actually fairly certain, though not one hundred percent certain, but fairly certain that I've never actually committed any crimes on Arendelle soil, so I'd like to remind you that you don't actually have any charges you can level against me."

"While I find that extremely hard to believe, and generally maintain that your mere existence is a crime in and of itself, I'd like to remind you that this isn't some utopian democracy you have wandered into. We aren't living in a humane world where you get to be judged by a jury of your peers or where things like justice are dictated by a fair system with rules. This is a land of iron and barbarism and I get to do anything I want in it because I'm with the guy in charge and because I've got the biggest stick among everyone swinging for the next three countries over. Now, tell me what it is you are here to tell me or I'll have it torn out of you instead."

Hans didn't reply for a second, he just looked at her, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face before saying, "as I'm sure you're aware, I passed through Lettes a short while ago."

"Yes, I had heard something to the effect of you scampering off there after your dad got sick of you."

Hans grinned up at her, "I can't help but feel the need to point out some irony in you poking fun at my daddy issues."

"The problem with pointing out whenever the pot calls the kettle black, Hans, is that they both _are_ black. The problem with pointing it out to me, however, is that even from over here I can freeze your eyeballs with my brain."

"I can't help but feel, by your temper, that you already know why I'm here."

"My temper is caused by you interrupting all the fun I was having doing awesome royal things, like eating and sleeping at weird hours of the day and fucking people just because I can."

"Well, I'm glad you've finally got a start on that last part. We all appreciate the warm weather."

"You're welcome. By the way, I'm keeping a running tally of every time in this conversation you've made me want to have you lashed."

"I actually kind of like getting lashed," Hans admitted, looking oddly guilty about it.

_I'd totally hatefuck this guy if I was straight_

-You are repulsive-

"Is it your actual job to be the reason people are afraid of their closets at night?" Elsa asked, a disgusted look on her face/

"Well, it's certainly not _your_ job anymore."

"Alright, well now I'm just coming down there and murdering you," Elsa said, standing up.

"By the way," Hans said, "the message I was supposed to deliver was that Alexander has your slave girl."

Elsa froze.

_Don't. Just wait. If you boil over now this will go badly_

She forced herself to take a calming breath.

Hans took her silence as a sign to continue. "He's holding her hostage in exchange for Ansgar."

Elsa gave him a confused look. "But why would he ever think that would work?" She asked. "Even if I was anywhere near that stupid, I'd still have Ansgar here to advise me."

Hans shrugged. "He didn't seem very smart when I talked to him," he said. "He really likes the satisfaction of well laid plan."

"Too bad his plans kind of suck, apparently. So I take it if I decline or hesitate they'll torture her?"

"Yeah, something like that," Hans said.

_Steady. Hold it in._

"Alright, I can live with that. I won't be happy, but it'll take like, what, less than two days to just go over there and take her back? And right on the heels of her captors, so that's a pretty damn small window for them to actually do any damage."

"I was actually told to wait a few more days before telling you, but I got bored and the inn by the harbor was starting to smell bad because everyone wouldn't stop rotting. I was also told to inform you that if you attempted anything brash, like launching an assault on Settes, the girl would be killed."

_Not yet. You still have to go all the way over there. You can't do that if you go all berserker on me._

"Well, I mean, that's clearly bullshit."

"Yeah," Hans admitted, "it really sounded a lot like bullshit when they said it to me."

"You aren't a very good messenger boy," Elsa told him.

"I don't really owe anything to Alexander. He was rude to me."

"Well, now he's been extremely rude to me. Anyways, thank you Hans, you'll be escorted to the dungeon now."

"Okay," Hans said, really not seeming to care all that much.

"Unfortunately for everyone down there, we don't have a separate cell for you."

"Wow, that really is a pity," Hans said as he was led away.

-How about now?-

_No. Not now._

* * *

><p>"And you're going to go get this slave girl?" Makin asked, somewhat skeptical.<p>

"Yep, in fact I'm going to go do that right now," Elsa said.

"Elsa, has it occurred to you that you may be in shock?" Ansgar asked. "We know you had been developing feelings for this girl."

"It's not shock, I'm just delaying being angry."

"I'm pretty sure that's shock."

_It's totally not shock, don't listen to him_

"You aren't really going to stop me from going," Elsa said. It wasn't a question.

"Oh no, I honestly think this is a fantastic opportunity to get yourself killed. Failing that, however, I'm sure you'll learn all sorts of new things about yourself."

"This sounds to me like a terrible idea," Makin said. "At least bring a_ few_ men with you from the army. They can mobilize within the night."

"Nope, too slow," Elsa said. "In fact, even this is dragging on too long. I just came to say you guys will have to take care of the country for a bit. Not a scratch gentlemen."

* * *

><p>An hour later, Elsa was dressed in the best fitting shirt and pants she could find in the castle, which ended up belonging to a servant, and in the process of jumping off one of the horses Howard had given her an eternity ago.<p>

"Make sure he gets food and water," she said, passing the reigns to a bewildered man before heading down towards the docks, walking through the door of an important office. Probably some trading company.

"What's the fastest ship in the harbor?" She asked the man she found in there. "No, stop that, if you fucking waste time on a bow it's going to end with your nose in my knee."

"Please don't steal our ship," he said to her.

"I'm not going to steal it, why would I do that? I just want to know what the fastest ship is."

"I have had over twenty people ask me that, and every single one of them has ended up trying to steal one of our ships."

"Wow, okay that's some crummy luck, but I'm in a bit of a pickle here and also about to start hurting you a lot so I'm really gonna need that ship."

"Can you at least leave the crew behind?"

"Yeah that's fine, tell them to point it out of the harbor and hop out and I'll just kinda manage it from there. You can keep all the valuables on it as well, they'll only slow me down."

"This is the worst thing that's happened to me since I tried to stay at the inn two nights ago."

"Heard about that, my condolences, and thanks for the ship by the way."

"Can I take this opportunity to bring up the unfairness of the current tariffs with you?"

"Buddy, seek an audience with me when I get back and I will talk tariffs with you like you wouldn't believe."


	13. Chapter 13

**So this took a little longer than usual as the free time I took advantage of to begin writing this started coming to an end recently and yesterday was my first day where I was legitimately too busy to do any writing. Fortunately, as I hope you guys noticed, this is also a double update! The reason I get to do a double update is because the next chapter, chapter 14, was the first thing I ever wrote for this story, the rest being based almost entirely around reaching that point, and so I had it already (mostly) prepared. Also, these are the two second longest chapters so far, weighing in at over 5K words each.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Alexander realized he was staring absentmindedly at the slave girl chained to the wall at the end of the room, and snapped back to reality to continue eating the veal before him. Across the table sat Raphael, whose mind entertained no such dalliances in the face of food, which he had spent most of his life without as an urchin. Alexander had to admit, it was always kind of disgusting to watch the man eat with such fervor. The thought kept him company as he braced himself for what he was about to do today.<p>

Shivering against the cold of the lower levels of the keep, the only source of warmth a chimney that had been built up through the bowels of the seaside keep they were in, Alexander took his last bite and then stood from the table placed at the end of the room.

"I must be off now," he said to Raphael. "You are to wait here with the girl."

"Would I not be more effective amongst the contingent of guards stationed outside?" Raphael asked.

"Only should a sorcerer come, but otherwise I want you here, where it's safe." It was a bullshit reason, Alexander knew, but he was pressed for time and couldn't think of a better excuse, so he simply added, "that's an order."

He strode out through the door of the room, down the hall that made a left and led only to the interrogation room whose tables and instruments had been cleared aside. A group of knights awaited, wielding a various assortment of deadly looking weapons. There was even a sledge, hefted by a man so big he had had no luck finding a smith who could forge plate his size, and was instead garbed in swaths of chain mail that made him stand out amidst the gleaming armor.

They stood to attention as their king entered, easing again at a motion of his hand. They were the best his army had to offer, and Alexander knew it would be a shame to see them go.

But sacrifices had to be made.

Continuing on, he eventually made it to the courtyard of the seaside fortress, where a few dozen soldiers milled about. He paid them no mind, moving quickly out the gate to where his steed awaited alongside his several attendants. He mounted up, and with a word they were off, moving west towards the harbor where a small ship, the only sign of life by the recently abandon docks, was preparing to cast off.

He felt a twinge of guilt at leaving Raphael to his fate, but he had known ever since he felt the winds coming in strong from the west that the ridiculous plan he had worked out with the sorcerer was as doomed to failure as he had suspected.

No matter, he had compensated, and his conquered army sailed in from the north, to arrive later that day, now with sorcerers in tow thanks to his abandon of all discretion. It had been a gamble, but he was a gambling man.

Alexander quickly scampered aboard the ship upon his arrival to the docks, the last bit of cargo before they set sail. Finally, he let out a sigh of relief. From where he stood overlooking the sea over the rails, he could already make out the black dot heading towards the shore at unnatural speed. Elsa would be upon them in mere hours.

"I see you've lost your wizard," said a man with a deep voice, walking behind him to lean with the king against the railing. Kazim had been a slave once, Alexander recalled, but now stories were told of his prowess in battle. He had risen through the ranks, and was a respected general of the conquered armies. His ship had set sail early to meet the king, and now was tasked with bringing Alexander back to his fleet.

"He has volunteered to stay behind, sacrifice himself to keep Elsa occupied while we make our landing," Alexander said. It was at least partially true, give or take how voluntary Raphael's sacrifice had been on his own part. He was sure the man would be less understanding of his station and orders if he knew Arendelle's sorceress was on their doorstep.

So he simply hadn't mentioned it to him.

"How noble," Kazim said, eyes fixed on the horizon. "And what do you plan with this sorceress, if not her death?"

"Initially? I plan on keeping her busy long enough for my army to arrive," Alexander said. "Once she has finished with the fortress and we've surrounded her, I intend to use her."

"You think she will betray her own family to help you?"

"No, not against her family. Honestly, I doubt she'd even help me against anything by this point, threatened slave girl or not. All I plan on doing is moving her down south a little bit, pointing her back home, and letting her carve out her own path of destruction between her and Amaury. By the time she gets back, we'll have razed her castle to the ground."

Kazim nodded slowly, then turned his head to a crew member and nodded again, faster this time.

"I see a problem with your little plan," he said to the king.

"Oh? Enlighten me," Alexander's tone was terse, not in the mood to be questioned by glorified slave boys, but he still knew better than to prevent a potentially fatal flaw from being pointed out.

"First," Kazim said as strong hands pushed Alexander's head further over the water and ran a knife across his throat, "Amaury already gave your 'conquered army' a better offer; the offer of a king, not a conqueror."

Alexander choked and gargled, watching his precious blood flow away into the sea.

"Second," Kazim said as he took the crown off the king's head, placing it gently on his, "your plans are shit."

He watched the life drain from the king's eyes, a cheer running up amongst the crew as his body was thrown overboard. Settes was theirs now.

"We rejoin the fleet," he said to his audience of sailors and soldiers, "and when we land, we kill this witch of Arendelle"

He basked in the glory of their bloodthirsty roars.

* * *

><p><em><strong>The day before<strong>_

_"Sorcerers," Ansgar said, "are capable of bringing terrible destruction down onto one another, but there are limits."_

_ "Wow, limits to magic? I would have never guessed," Elsa said, feeling somewhat pissed that the lesson was taking her away from time she could be spending with Anna._

_ "Elsa, it's barely been half a day and you already need to get laid again. Have you considered the possibility that you're doomed to being high maintenance?"_

_ "Again, that still isn't something I'm just going to talk to you about, cr-"_

_ "Call me a wizard one more time. I dare you." Something about his voice made Elsa shut up._

_ "Fine, keep going," she muttered._

_ "As I was saying, our magic is able to do many horrible, awful things to our fellow man, but not directly. More specifically, we cannot originate magic within a person's body. It must originate from outside their bodies, moving in to influence them."_

_ "So you're saying I can't just up and freeze the contents of Kristoff's bladder just because he's pissing me off?"_

_ "Precisely. The only exception is if you come into direct contact with them, since then the magic can originate from within you and pour into them. Otherwise, a person's being is sacred. Even those without magic express this trait, which has lead to the suggestion that at least a tiny amount must be present in each person. In this way, we are all null-casters."_

_ "So I could like clap my hand on his shoulder pretending to be all buddy buddy and then freeze his bladder?"_

_ "Ye...ess, I suppose."_

_ "Cool, can I uh...be excused from the lesson for today? I have somewhere I want to go..."_

_ Ansgar laughed. "You're not getting away that easy. Besides, your brother has left by now for Corona."_

_ He tossed her a pair of padded gloves and a training helmet, donning them himself. "More importantly, we're going to do some more sparring. You called me a wizard again, so I admit to being in the mood to knock your head around a little."_

_ Elsa sighed, and put the gloves on._

* * *

><p>Elsa had made good time. Initially, she had caused a strong wind to push her ship towards where she needed to go, but it turned out that ships were tricky things and she really had no idea what the tangle of ropes and masts was about. Eventually, sails began groaning and the pace slowed up as she fought with the helm to stay the course.<p>

In the end, she had covered the bottom of the damn thing with ice and crudely shoved it along. To speed things up, she had removed the rigging, sails, and all but the trunk of the mainmast, venting her anger somewhat as she crawled about the ship, tearing wood into splinters and shredding sails and throwing them over board.

Eventually she allowed herself to be reigned in again. The voice in her head was right, she would never make it to Anna if she went on her rampage too early. Still, it had been almost a full day since she cast off, and she grew impatient. More than once she was sure she'd gotten lost at sea, but apparently her stronger half knew how to read the stars, and she let herself be led through how uncertain she was of when she had ever actually read about navigating.

She had kept her mind busy, practicing magic. Now, as the harbor came in sight, she looked down to her arm. Steeling herself, she bit against it, hard, feeling the pain it caused. She surged her magic to the spot, feeling the nerves in her arm and dulling the pain they sent. It wasn't perfect, it wouldn't help against large amounts of pain, but she had gotten good at it and by this point, at the feeling of injury, dulling the pain had become second nature.

It had almost distracted her from her barely contained anger.

-Okay, how about now?- she asked herself, as the docks drew near.

_No, not now. You still have to secure this thing at the docks._

-Fuck that-

She swung herself over the rail of the ship, reinforcing her body as the water below her froze solid, forming a path to the shore. When she arrived, she read the air looking for signs of where Anna may have gone.

_Up the hill, further inland, I can sense her_

She nodded to no one in particular. The harbor town looked abandoned, and she had noticed that, other than the wreck of the ship she had crashed into it, there were no other naval vessels to be seen.

_No sense keeping boats around for a fight with an ice sorceress_

At the edge of town she found three horses, tied up and presumably left to starve. They looked healthy though, likely having arrived recently, and were sucking away happily at a trough of water. Hopping one, and cussing violently at its apparent dislike of her, she eventually began heading further east up the open fields. In the distance, a fortress loomed.

_There, the trail leads there_

-Now, then?-

_Still no_

She sped on.

* * *

><p>Arriving at the fortress, she could see that it was gated. Behind the gate there seemed to be a great deal of commotion, no doubt they'd seen her coming.<p>

-So I can be angry now, right?-

_That gate is reinforced iron, and even from here I can feel their null-caster going full force. Get as mad as you want, you're still not breaking through that with ice._

Elsa sighed, not at all in the mood to be keeping a clear head.

Then she turned on her horse and rode away.

She went as far as it took before she was out of the suppression field and close enough to the still-distant harbor that could feel the air around the mast of her ship, which had snapped off and fallen in the briny waves below the docks. Slowly, straining her magic at the great distance, she encased it in ice and lifted it up, out of the water. It began drifting towards her, and after a minute or so she felt her influence truly increasing, allowing it to pick up speed with each passing second.

She rode back to the fortress, and by the time she returned she could hear a faint shrieking in the distance, growing ever louder.

There was a cry of alarm from within the fortress, and suddenly the mast flew over her head, a blur, and directly towards the castle gate.

As it passed, she let her ice dissipate. The field around the castle may have weakened her magic, but the mast was not magic, and it blew the gate to the castle open in a violent shower of wood and bent iron. As she drew nearer and the dust settled, she could make out the frightened faces of a crowd of soldiers from within, pointing spears and poorly crafted swords towards the foggy entrance. She got off her horse.

-Now?-

_Sic 'em_

Elsa saw red.

Spikes of ice burst forth from every surface in the courtyard, curling around as they grew and impaling soldiers. The gate may have been too reinforced for her weakened magic, but the leather padding the men wore was easy to pierce. It didn't take long for the silence to be filled with their screams. Elsa hadn't meant for it to take long, either. The ragtag crew out front was a distraction she couldn't afford, and she barreled past them intently.

With a surge of speed, she jumped at the massive oak door to the keep's central chamber, putting her shoulder forwards and sending the icy tattoo of hardening over her skin, locking her body.

The door did not open under her assault, but that didn't stop her body from punching a hole through it anyways. She landed, keeping low to avoid the panicked swing of a sword. In here, she could already tell she was close enough to Raphael to not be able to extend her magic very far from her body.

Closer to her body, however, ice was still easy to maintain. She buried an axe of ice into the soldier's head.

No, not soldier, stable boy. Looking around it seemed that this room was where the peasants were being kept safe. Too infuriated to bother wondering why they might be hidden directly in her path of the destruction, Elsa only saw that they had managed to arm themselves in their panic with the shoddy, leftover equipment that the soldiers hadn't used, and that they were still in the way.

She sprinted forwards at breakneck speed towards a maid with a sword, who hurled the thing at her in fear. Elsa used her magic to send herself flinging to the side, a little further than expected, and she went tumbling about on the ground, running into someone who she fatally crushed against a wall. Not terrifically graceful.

_You need to get the hang of your magic faster_

She jumped back up, raising her arm and solidifying it as a man tried to bring a frying pan down on her head. A _clang_ resonated through the room as the kitchenware cracked against her, but her armor had withstood crashing through trees, and the frying pan bounced off and out of the man's fingers. She made to kick his leg out from under him, overestimating somewhat and putting her boot directly through his shin. She swung her axe around to open up the man's throat and silence the scream he had made as he fell towards her before standing up and turning to the woman who had thrown the sword. She had made the mistake of running towards the door Elsa had planned on taking, and when Elsa caught up she grabbed the maid's head and used it to break the door off its hinges.

A nearby young man let out an anguished scream at her death, rushing Elsa from behind with a sword.

_These soldiers sure brought a lot of spare swords_

Elsa spun around, catching his untrained swing with her axe, and quickly slammed an open palm to the boy's chest that sent his rib cage into his spine.

Ignoring the remaining servants who cowered in the room, Elsa carried on, wiping the blood and gray matter that had gotten on her hand off on the grubby shirt she was wearing.

-Where?-

_Keep going. She'll probably be in a dungeon, so take those stairs on your right._

Elsa weaved right, jumping down the staircase and cracking the stone at the bottom where she landed. If it had been up to her, she'd have brought this whole place down on Raphael from afar, where his magic couldn't stop her, but with Anna someplace within, she couldn't risk it.

She ran down halls, always choosing the direction that made her magic grow weaker. If Anna was anywhere, it would be with Raphael she was sure of it. Her ice axe had long since dissipated. Eventually, she reached a corner, and flung around it too fast, crashing violently into the wall and narrowly avoiding a metal bolt that embedded itself into the wall to her side. Looking down the narrow corridor, she saw a lone guard in front of a door, well armed and armored, already casting down his crossbow and drawing his sword with a roar.

Countering with a scream of her own, enjoying letting all the pent up frustration and anger of the past day burst out of her, Elsa closed the distance between them in an instant. For the second time that day, she jumped up and reinforced herself, locking her braced elbow as it collided with first his sword, which shattered, then his chest, which sent them both back into the door. The door had a reinforced frame, but they slammed into it with enough force to fell an elephant, and Elsa could feel her shoulder plunging through the man's chest as the door exploded inwards.

_You really have a thing against doors, huh?_

Her momentum carried her through the room, sliding on the man's carcass until she was dead center of a mass of extremely large men in plate armor. Well made steel glinted at her from all sides. They looked sharp and disciplined and dangerous.

_No ice for you in here, beyond what's directly in and on your body. No stabbing people or reading air or making axes. The field is too strong this close._

Elsa carefully dislodged her shoulder from the crater it had made in the guard's chest, looking around and feeling, for the first time, some fear begin to creep into the seething haze of her mind. Her magic was limited to physical feats down here, and these men looked like they had mastered all there was to know about the physicality of combat.

_Ten of them; three to the front of you, two on both sides, and three behind you_

There was no movement in the room as the knights, too, appraised their opponent.

_Keep all your strikes reinforced and lock up before you get hit_

Elsa got up, slowly.

_Try to avoid the distraction of healing until they're all dead too, if you can help it_

Swords were drawn, axes were hoisted.

_Okay, is that a sledge? Who the fuck fights with a _sledge_ in a room like this?_

-Probably that guy. Look at him, I'm surprised there's room for any organs in there.-

_Definitely try not to get hit by that, reinforced or no that thing will shatter you_

Elsa swallowed. "Uh, any chance at you guys just surrendering?" She asked nervously.

The knight behind her made the first move, dancing in with alarming agility given his armor and sending a lightning fast jab at Elsa, who heard the noise and frantically sent herself rocketing sideways. Ducking an axe, she finally gathered herself enough to face the knight and reinforce her head as he punched her with an armored fist that sent her backwards, spinning around on awkward feet to face him again. His hand broke, her face didn't. He didn't seem to mind though, grunting slightly and swinging the axe in his good hand back at her.

She jumped in, catching his swing by the arm and punching his helmet hard enough to put a dent in it that crushed through his forehead and lodged itself in his frontal lobes. She grabbed him by the torso, swinging his body around to deflect a sword strike, then let go, continuing her spin to see and duck the maul as it was swung at her head, sweeping her leg across the floor and knocking the large man's feet from him.

She couldn't move to finish the maul wielder as a kick was aimed at her face and she sent herself flying back and up off the ground. Her back hit a wall, and she pushed off it with a hand, flying back past two knights and planting her feet on the chest of a third, not doing any serious damage but sending him falling backwards. Elsa was already jumping back in a flip off him, over the swing of a sword and the head of the man holding it, planting a kick to the back of his head that took it clean off.

Elsa landed on her ass, but she was already laughing from the exhilaration. The magic was letting her act with a speed, strength and confidence of motion than she could have ever dreamed of otherwise.

_You're getting good at this_

A knight grabbed one of her legs and, with impressive strength, slid her across the floor and then up, off the ground, spinning in an arc around him.

Towards the sledge, swung by the chain mail knight.

Elsa kicked the elbow of the arm holding her foot, pulverizing it and snapping the it backwards at a sickening angle. Her body fell from his grip, the sledge missing her face by millimeters, and she reinforced her head as it dragged across the floor throwing up sparks.

Her body tumbled through the room, and she locked it up just before a foot found her gut, sending her sprawling in the opposite direction. Her mind was still confused from her head's collision with the ground. It seemed that her armored skull was still liable to have her brain rattled around inside it.

She unlocked, flinging herself into the air where she continued spinning out of control over the heads of a few knights and then landed, fairly dizzy, and fell into a wall. She collected herself quickly, leaning to the side to avoid a fist that collided with the wall. Faster than the knight could pull away, Elsa grabbed the arm, continuing to hold onto it even after she had kicked the man it belonged to away.

She took stock of her aggressors. Two dead, one semiconscious against the wall, and one with a broken arm whose pain he had succumbed to, writhing on the floor. Two of the other knights positioned themselves to cut her off from him, keeping their wounded companion safe. The remainder staggered themselves as they advanced.

_They've caught on to how fast you move, they're making sure they surround you at all times. Just telling you now, these guys would kick your ass in a fair fight._

-Any suggestions?-

_Go faster?_

-I don't know if I can-

_Sorry kid, you have to go fast_

Elsa turned to the side, put her foot up against the wall, and kicked off as hard as she could, propelling herself as she streaked through the air. She was prepared for the knight in front of her to try and sidestep her and she stuck the arm of the knight out and slammed it against his face as she went by, snapping his neck. She flipped mid-air and brought her feet up to her chest, kicking them out at the last second at a second knight. The knight tried to catch them as a last resort, but Elsa was too powerful and her legs buried themselves through his armor and ribcage.

_You can totally feel his heart jerking around on your ankle, how cool is that?_

Elsa ripped her feet out of the man's chest, spinning again to face the room now from the other side. Her feet slipped on their slick coatings of blood and she fell back against the wall.

_What do walls offer that doors never could, Elsa?_

The staggered formation was gone, abandoned in the face of her new tactic, replaced by a rush, and a knight was already upon her. She swung a punch at him, intending to excavate his chest, but he leaned away from it before swinging his sword to her side. She tucked an arm against her chest and reinforced it, the sword clanging harmlessly against her before she unlocked her arm and flicked her hand against the flat of the blade, tearing it out of her assailant's grip.

She made to jump at him but another fist came out of nowhere, catching her unprepared this time and connecting with her less-armored head, driving her back to the wall, momentarily dazed. The knight she had disarmed was already retreating, another taking his place and circling around Elsa to her right, giving his sword arm the advantage with the wall to his left. He leaned in for a stab, withdrawing as Elsa tried to punch the sword into the wall, her fist only bringing up pieces of stone. She stabilized her stance, and then propelled herself at him, hoping to simply barrel through his chest.

He dropped his sword, bringing his arms to his chest in defense and Elsa heard them both break as she collided with him. She could tell he was still alive as they landed, her on top, so she raised a fist and it was caught by someone behind her. She reinforced it, just to be safe, and a battleaxe was dislodged from its handle against her elbow. The grip wasn't relenting, so she drove her fist forward into the face of the knight below her anyways, throwing the knight that was holding onto her to the ground where she could see him.

Elsa stood up off the dead man and walked towards the knight who had grabbed her. He was struggling to stand in his armor, and she raised a leg to stomp his spine in half. Movement in the corner of her eye made her fly to the side at the last second though, as the sledge narrowly missed her again. She stopped herself, then turned back and went for the knight in chain mail. He was really beginning to piss her off.

She caught the sledge by the shaft on its second swing towards her, yanking it away into her own grip and spinning around as the knight who had grabbed her finished standing up. The sledge hit his spine so hard he popped in half, as did the weapon. Elsa turned back around, throwing the stick in her hands at the knight in chain mail like a javelin that he dodged, the shaft instead lodging itself through the chest of the knight with the broken arm who lay behind him.

_He's fast for a gorilla_

He advanced, and Elsa was about to punish him for it when she was forced to lean to the side to avoid a crossbow bolt. It seemed the man she had disarmed earlier had gone out and found the guard's crossbow. She reached behind her, pulling the bolt out of the wall by her head and throwing it across the room, through the man's helmet.

Light exploded behind her eyes as the man in chain mail headbutted her from the side, her lack of reinforcement at her surprise causing her to stumble back. She jumped back from a punch she hadn't the concentration to protect properly against, and then, gathering her wits about her, decided it only fair she headbutt the man back. She jumped forwards and lovingly buried her face into his face.

Using an arm to clear the blood and small bits of brain and teeth off of her face, she looked around at the suddenly very empty chamber. One knight stood across the room, an empty shaft in his hand from where the head of his battleaxe had broken off. He cast it to the ground and ran for the door.

Elsa laughed, bracing herself against the wall again and launching off from it. She spun through the air, head first, and caught the fleeing knight with both her hands, tearing him apart at the gut and spinning in between the two halves to land with both her feet against the far wall, stepping down in a much better mood.

_Don't get ahead of yourself, you still need to save Anna_

Anna, right. Elsa looked around at the room, suddenly much less excited. Suddenly much less happy to have caused all of this.

She realized she heard screaming, and turned to a man propped up against the wall nursing the spot where an arm used to be, his face visibly contorted in pain with his helmet missing. Elsa walked up to him.

"Where is Anna?" She asked. The man didn't seem to hear though, too busy screaming an absurdly loud scream.

_Does this guy do pushups with his lungs or something?_

Elsa lifted him up by his chest plate, slamming him against the wall. "I _said_ where is Anna?!" Still nothing coherent.

_I don't think he's going to be much help. Besides, there's only one other door out of this place._

Elsa conceded, tossing him aside and leaving him to his pain.

She wasn't in the mood to hurt anyone anymore.

* * *

><p><strong>The moral of the story is to pay your fucking taxes, filthy peasant casuals. <strong>


	14. Chapter 14

**THIS IS A DOUBLE UPDATE, IF THIS CHAPTER IS CONFUSING YOU IT'S BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T READ #13, GO BACK**

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><p>Elsa had given herself a few minutes, coated herself in frost to heal the small scratches and bruises that covered her body. She was disappointed with the time and difficulty involved in healing even the smallest of wounds, but it was still better than nothing.<p>

Her stronger half filled her in as she headed for the door.

_This fight will be like nothing you've ever experienced. Even with your magic gone, you'll still have some innate resilience to pain, but you share that with Raphael. He's also going to heal every punch you land on him within minutes._

Elsa made her way down the hall from the guarded room, pondering the shitty design of the dungeon. As she approached, she felt the last of her power wane.

_ He's in there_

Despite the blood boiling in her veins, she slowed her approach. The magic that once coursed through her body with such exhilarating strength was now gone, completely. No more ice, no more armor, no more healing, no more strength. Even the skill with which she had moved had been partially magical. She was afraid, she realized. Afraid and weak.

But she needed to save Anna.

Gathering her resolve, she charged towards the door just as Raphael slammed it open towards her from the other side. Elsa brought up her hands too late to protect her face, and the side of the door knocked painfully against her skull. Raphael grabbed the collar of her shirt, used her momentum to drag her forward towards the doorway and, tripping her over his extended foot, shoved her into the room.

"Thought I heard your handiwork," he said as he followed her in.

Elsa sprawled against the floor, scrambling away to try and get her footing, and bearings. The room was rectangular, extending further to the left from the door, with a fireplace embedded in the wall to the immediate right that cast a glow over a long, full dining table strewn with plates and food and surrounded by wooden chairs.

Elsa whirled and brought her guard up against the sorcerer, who had been given the chance to wind up a haymaker that crunched hard enough against her wrist that she ended up simply punching herself in the face before stumbling back into a chair.

_You're a fucking combat _machine_ without your magic, you know that?_

She reached behind her, grabbing the chair and swinging it around at the man, hoping to catch him faster than he could close in. Her efforts were in vain, he jumped past the chair, barreling into her, sending her bouncing against the table and losing her grip on the chair, which he caught and threw behind him with a whirl, turning his back to her momentarily.

_I know it's not saying much, but this guy is considerably better than you. If you don't press the attack here and now, he _will _tear you apart._

Elsa skipped backwards, retreating away from the fireplace, further into the room, bringing her poorly trained guard up again as her opponent turned back to her and advanced.

_ You useless little chicken shit_

Raphael sent a wild swing arcing to the side towards her, going for a kidney shot, that she blocked with a hugged arm. She glanced down at the strike she blocked, an amateur move, and was rewarded with a palm shot to her jaw that made the world spin, followed by a punishing jab to her solar plexus.

She doubled over, winded, unable to even comprehend the directions the voice in her head had begun yelling at her as her mind tried to again make sense of the world. She retreated again, almost level with the end of the dining table to her left now, her head beginning to clear when she bumped against something. A chair.

Elsa held it up, tight against her with no wild swing this time, and caught the body slam intended for her. One of the legs of the chair pushed into Raphael's gut, the pain making him intentionally slow his momentum enough that Elsa could stand her ground without toppling over from his greater body weight.

Without skipping a beat, she threw the chair down and moved in, her fist finally striking a blow against the man's cheek bone that jerked his head back slightly. For all the wounds he could heal, a punch to the head was still as disorienting as ever and, bounding over the now discarded furniture, Elsa pressed the attack, wincing from the pain in her knuckles as they struck solid skull again and again, disorienting the man past what, Elsa hoped, he would be able to recover from.

Yet, managing to regain some coherence through the onslaught, Raphael brought his hands up, and swept them down in an inwards arc, knocking Elsa's arms to her sides. She danced back from the expected blow, but instead felt the suppression field drop, just for a second, as light filled Raphael's hand.

_Shield!_

Given just enough time to defend, Elsa's hands shot out to form a barrier of ice in front of her. The energy from Raphael's hand collided with it and the explosion sent the two staggering away. Elsa was the first to recover, the ice shards flung throughout the room had no effect on her, but the field was already back up and whatever harm they dealt to Raphael was quickly rendered moot as they dissolved to steam and he healed.

Using her brief advantage, Elsa resorted to charging over to the kneeling sorcerer, delivering a low kick to his face that he ducked, retaliating with an uncharacteristically expert sweep of his foot that knocked out Elsa's one standing leg and sent her on her ass.

_If he gets you on the ground, it's over_

Raphael got up and moved to finish the melee by getting on top of her. Elsa responded by rolling to the small of her back and sending a wild kick directly between his legs that made the man curl up and howl in pain, allowing Elsa to scramble back and regain her footing.

_Seriously? A kick in the dick, Elsa? What are you, twelve years old?_

-How about you stick to giving advice that doesn't suck shit, asshole?-

_Fine, but that's still pretty low_

Raphael, apparently made of sterner stuff where head trauma wasn't involved, had already straightened up, though his face was contorted with pain and rage. He rushed Elsa, evading her wild punch by dodging to her right and slamming his elbow into the side of her face, his right foot hooked under hers.

The world in Elsa's mind burst for a moment at the impact from his elbow, then reformed long enough for her to realize she was falling, and then the world burst again as the left side of her head slammed against the side of the table and she hit the floor.

_Roll under or he'll kick you_

Gathering the wherewithal, from where she knew not, she somehow managed to obey the advice, rolling under the table as quickly as she could through her muddled thoughts, though a kick still landed solidly under her ribcage, making her gasp. She faced upwards as Raphael walked to the long end of the table, where her feet pointed, and he began pushing the table to diminish her cover. In her desperation she raised her legs to push back, up against the lip of the underside of the table, keeping it in position.

In response, Raphael pulled his foot back and slammed it as hard as he could between Elsa's legs.

Elsa let out a cry that turned into a cough and then a sob in her throat, her vision darkened and stars danced about during the few moments she could see clearly. Her abdomen felt like it had been eviscerated by a column of flame, and she curled up and vomited.

_ That's really gross by the way_

Raphael let out a satisfied grunt, giving the table a final shove so that it collided with the far wall, to the left of the roaring fireplace.

"Not too fuckin' fun when it happens to you, huh?"

_Oh man I can't wait for the part where you kill this guy_

Elsa tried to summon the will to move, to do something beyond clench her teeth against the sobs that wracked her body. The pain was unbelievable. She had never had any idea that it was possible for the kind of pain she was feeling to exist.

An arm grabbed one of her curled up legs, pulling her away from the remaining cover of the table.

_Do something Elsa_

Raphael spared an extra stomp to the side exposed by her fetal position, before raising his hand.

_Elsa, this is where he kills you_

His hand lit up, crackling with energy, and in that split second Elsa's power flowed back, soothing the pain and easing her mind, and-

_ Elsa MOVE!_

She pushed herself to the side, the direction away from the entrance to the room, as a bolt of energy put a crater in the ground beside her so violently it sent her rolling into the far wall, shards of stone cracking around her. She got up slowly, pulling herself up with the wall, her aches and pains alleviated but still present. Raphael was already moving in, and swung a punch at her head that she moved out of the way of by pushing against the wall. She had hoped he would overbalance his throw, hit his fist against the wall, but he accommodated well, and turned his momentum to her. She sent an uppercut to his jaw, coming in below his line of sight and catching him by surprise. Her followup, however, was sidestepped and he caught her wrist under his right forearm, trapping it to his body and allowing him to hold her steady as his other arm sent punishing blows to her ribcage and gut that her free hand could do little to protect against beyond ensuring the safety of her head.

_Get out of there_

-Wow you really know how to give a girl advice-

_Hey Elsa, maybe you should ask your doctor if Not Getting Your Ass Kicked is right for you_

Elsa made to pull her arm free, stumbling instead as Raphael released her and stomped her foot, sending her off balance and reeling backwards. Stabilizing herself on the table, her right hand closed against a handle of some sort. Risking a look down, she found a knife.

Risking a look up, she found a fist. It connected with her forehead, and as she stumbled back, she brought the knife up for protection.

_Not actually a half bad knife, sharp and everything, I can't wait to see how shit you are at using it_

Raphael sent another bolt of energy towards her. The pain and confusion from the injuries Elsa's head and foot had suffered were piling up, and she barely managed to put up an ice barrier in time to stop it.

The explosion knocked them both back, Elsa stumbling against the table for support once again before her opponent was upon her again, relentless. She swung the knife at him, but he caught her wrist and, in a swift movement, tripped her, spinning her around and planting her face into the floor with her right arm, her knife arm, pinned painfully against her back, and all of Raphael's weight pressing down on her.

"Release it," he panted, almost as out of breath as Elsa herself. "Release it or I will break you." To emphasize his point, he yanked her arm up painfully, forcing a cry from Elsa's lips at the unbelievable pain.

"Okay," she begged, "okay I'll do it, I'll do it! Please stop!" The knife tumbled from her grasp, falling to her right towards the table.

Raphael chuckled. "Good girl," he said.

Then he wrenched her arm up until he heard it snap.

The world went dark.

-Oh God-

_Elsa_

-Help, please help me-

_Elsa listen_

-Please help, I don't understand what's happening-

_ He is going to kill you Elsa_

-What's happening? Help, please make it stop-

_He's tearing your arm. He seems mad._

-What's that sound? Am I screaming?-

_Like a little bitch. Elsa, you need to let me handle this_

-No, just tell me what to do, please-

_I can make the pain go away, you know that. It would be so easy._

-Please don't do this-

_Make up your mind quick, once the bone snaps that's when the real pain-_

-AAAAAAAAAAAH-

_Okay now you're just screaming in your own mind_

-WHAT'S HAPPENING, I DON'T...I...-

_He's still pulling at your arm. I think he's mad because you kicked his dick, which I agree with, you shouldn't have kicked his dick, that's just the worst._

-Oh god oh god oh god-

_You're going into hysterics now. Probably because he's starting to tear the muscle in your shoulder._

-Kill me please kill me-

_Now you're just wetting yourself. Incredible. I know I tell you this a lot, but you are honestly the shittiest human ever._

-Why won't he kill me-

_He's about to._

-Oh God please yes-

_Not a chance bitch, I'm in here with you and I'm not going out that easy_

-Want to die...can't take this-

_You have to save Anna, remember?_

-Anna...?-

_That's right, now listen to me_

-want this to stop-

_It will soon, you know what's going to happen, listen_

-O-Okay-

_He'll send another energy bolt at your head_

-Thank God-

_Shut up. When he does this, you get your powers back. First thing you focus on is frying the nerves in your shoulder. Don't just dull the pain, that won't last long enough once the field's back. Fry the nerves, they'll be dead and the pain will go away. Think you can handle that?_

-N-No, just kill me-

_I admire your dedication, shit stain. Second, I need you to pulse magic out of your left hand, the one pressed to the floor. Think you can handle that too?_

-Oh God is it over yet?-

_Just focus on two things Elsa. Hand and shoulder. Hand and shoulder._

-Please...-

_ Hand and shoulder. Say it with me._

-Hand'n..n...fuck-

_Stay with me Elsa: Hand and shoulder. That's all you focus on. Hand and shoulder._

-Hand'n shou...-

_Elsa time is up, he's leaning back, this is it._

-Hand and shoulder...fuck-fuck I can't do this!-

_You're getting it, c'mon, hand and shoulder, get ready_

-Please I can't I just want to die-

_Elsa his hand is lighting up_

-Oh fuck oh fuck...hand and shoulder hand and shoulder-

_Elsa DO IT NOW_

Elsa killed the nerves in her shoulder, murdered them with magic, numbing her entire arm, at the same time as the burst of raw ice power erupted from the hand she had pressed on the ground.

In a split second, the force sent her spinning, her dead arm tangling uselessly underneath her, and her left arm slapped Raphael's glowing hand to the side, the shock-wave of shattered stone behind her gone unnoticed.

Pain she had previously struggled to ignore was lessening, and in her belly was a fury and power long denied that began bubbling up. Raphael roared, sending a headbutt into her, now that she faced him on her back, that shattered her nose, before rearing back for another. The pain barely registering, Elsa's left hand gripped the blade that had slipped to her side, her head ducked back away from Raphael's followup headbutt, and she responded by plunging the knife directly into his throat.

His eyes widened in pain, the sound of gargled blood replacing a scream while his hands gingerly hovered around the wound. Elsa twisted the knife, forcing him off her with a combination of pain and her own upper body strength that she knew it was impossible for her to possess, while short snorts of breath bubbled from the bloody mess where her nose once stood proud. Slowly, eventually, she was rolling him over, forcing him to his back.

"_I'm going to enjoy making you squeal_," said a voice that was not hers.

Just before she gained the advantage his palm opened up in front of her.

_ Shit!_

Elsa curled her good arm to her chest to form an ice shield directly in between them. The bolt was stopped with an explosive force that, at that proximity, made her fly upwards, tailbone fracturing against the table, sending her flipping until she landed on her head with a distinct _crack _and the world went dark.

The darkness subsided for a moment, and washed out, mixed colours began to arrange themselves into coherent shapes. Her head span, and blood rushed in her ears but it was drowned out by the scream that only she could hear.

_NO!_

Elsa sat up slowly, fighting the nausea.

_LET ME BACK, I WAS DOING IT!_

She leaned over to steady herself on her arm, falling over when she forgot it was the arm that was hanging limp and useless.

_I can do this! I was going to win, god _dammit_ Elsa!_

She lay there for a moment, allowing herself a minute's rest that was quickly overtaken by the darkness once again.

How long had she been out, she wondered. Pushing herself up with her remaining arm, Elsa fought the dual vision and tried to make out the state of the man she saw through the legs of the table. In spite of the world swaying before her, she could still see him gargling, writhing in pain with the knife jutting from his throat. Fresh blood leaked continually around the weapon.

_ Fucking healers_, the voice in her head had calmed down significantly while she was out, it seemed, _and they say normal sorcerers are hard to kill._

Elsa rose to unsteady feet, stumbling forward into the table to gaze over it at the man on the other side.

"You," she managed to slur through her aching jaw and pounding head, "are a fucking prick."

At that, Raphael stared her straight in the eyes and, with an intensity and hatred that made her heart lurch in fear, grabbed the serrated blade jutting from his neck, and started to pull.

_That is extremely hardcore, and you need to finish him now._

Elsa released the table, took a clumsy step towards moving around the table and over to her enemy, and was making good progress for the majority of that single step before the world swam and she found herself lying on the floor again.

-I have a concussion and I don't think it's going away faster than he's going to pull that thing out of his neck-

_Agreed, for once. You need to get the fuck out of here to somewhere you can use your magic._

Without being entirely sure how, Elsa pushed herself up to her hands and knees, crawling for the door she came through. Behind her, she heard the strained whine as Raphael dragged the weapon from himself, millimeter by agonizing millimeter. Elsa stood on shaky legs, and fell into the wall beside the door, slumping down and losing consciousness again for a few brief minutes.

_Time's up. Run._

Looking over as she woke, Raphael was on the far side of the room, vomiting blood, the wound in his neck already mostly healed over, knife on the floor beside him.

-Oh fuck-

Finding herself considerably more steady after her minor rest, Elsa stumbled through the door and after a few short paces found her magic begin to come back to her.

It was barely a fraction of her true potential, but immediately her head cleared, the aches and pains went away, her fatigue melted into pure energy and resolve, and in her new clear state of thought, a plan sprung to mind.

With a few quick steps, she formed a blast of ice under her foot that sent her all the way up to the top of the hall. With her two feet and good hand pressed against the ceiling, face aiming towards the door she'd come through, she sealed them there with clusters of ice, her limp right arm tucked over her abdomen.

The door below her burst open, and with a roar the sorcerer ran towards her, then underneath her. He hadn't seen her. As he approached, she felt his field melt first the ice on her hand, causing her to swing down towards him, back first. Then the ice over her feet gave way and her momentum flipped her over and she dropped, allowing a foot to continue forward and slam into the back of the man's unsuspecting head with as much force as she could manage.

It also allowed her to land directly on her left kneecap.

_That's a fracture. You need to get better at flips._

She channeled her pain into a scream and a mighty punch to the back of the dazed sorcerer's head, knocking further sense out of him. Then she turned tail and hobbled back into the room they'd fought in, shutting the door behind her and flipping the latch closed just in time for him to slam into the door with a yell.

Wasting no time, she skirted around the table, positioned herself beside the fireplace and pressed her hands to the stone wall, channeling her energy through it as best she could given her distance from Raphael.

The power went through the stone, and allowed her to chill the air behind the fire. She couldn't believe it was working. She had no idea where the magical strength was coming from.

Just like Ansgar had taught her. Temperature and tornadoes. Cold fronts and wind. She poured all the magic she could into freezing that small square.

The door burst open in a shower of light and splinters and Raphael charged the young girl leaning against the wall in apparent defeat.

His field caught up to her magic, violently dissipating the ice into a burst of vapour.

A billow of flame and ashes exploded from the fireplace, engulfing the sorcerer and filling the room with the sound of rushing air and screams of a pitch that seared themselves in Elsa's memory. But even the fire could only do so much damage to a healer.

_Finish this. I want him dead._

Ignoring the pain in her knee, Elsa hopped a chair, then to the table, kicking a spare plate into the man's face for good measure, before launching herself on top of him, also ignoring the few embers that still clung to his clothes and flesh. It was mostly the heat that had scorched him.

They fell down together, Elsa barely registering the pain as all her weight went into her left leg again, shattering her kneecap. Blood rushed through her ears, and she was punching and tearing and scratching and she was screaming something but she didn't know what.

_ Fucking pulverize him_

His arm shot up to stop her, grabbed her ruined shoulder and squeezed the mangled extremity. Elsa's head flew back in a shriek and before she knew what she was doing her thumb was pressing into his eye. Hard. The pressure left her arm.

It did not leave his eye, and his hands went to try and pry her fingers away, as he begged her to stop between screeches.

_Make him beg_

She could not believe the anger and hatred pouring from her, the satisfaction she felt as the small orb below her gave in and the creature below her began to writhe in earnest.

_Make him squeal_

She wriggled her thumb around in his socket, changing the pitch of his screams.

His right arm lit up, aiming at her head, but his reaction was slowed from pain and she reached across with her good arm to slam his hand back down, the bolt shooting harmlessly into the ceiling above as her own power surge froze his arm until the flesh blackened.

His screams were weakening now, turning into babbling, and she grabbed him by the throat and brought him close.

"_Where is Anna?"_

His remaining eye rolled up in its socket and he babbled incoherently.

_Not good enough_

She punched him. And then again. And again. She kept going, punctuating each word of, "_WHERE. IS. SHE." _until the flesh split open on her fist, and her knuckles began popping and she didn't stop punching until her wrist dislocated and she was sat astride him, panting hysterically, two useless arms dangling by her side.

She threw her head back and bellowed, "AAANNNNAAAAAAAAA!"

_He's not dead yet_

-I want Anna-

_After. He will revive if you let up._

Staring down at the pulped face below her, Elsa hit him with the only thing she had left to hit him with. Her face. She slammed her forehead into him repeatedly, breaking his nose, sending his jaw too far back into his skull to have not torn something, before taking to his forehead. Her head was swimming again.

_This isn't going to work, your skull is going to fracture before his_

-The knife-

_No time, he'll heal too fast and you don't have a left kneecap with which to move to it fast enough_

-I'll kick his head until it-

_Yeah right, your other foot's broken where he stomped it_

-Then what the fuck do I _do_?!-

_I don't fucking know Elsa, but you'd better hurry the fuck up and do it fast before he regains consciousness_

-Fuck this I just want Anna...-

_Elsa he's stirring you need to finish this_

-Well help! What do I do? You need to tell me what to do!-

_I don't know but you have three seconds, fucking _kill him Elsa!

-What the fuck? I can't kill his brain that fast with what I have!-

_He's waking up Elsa, if he heals any more than this while you're unable to heal your current state then _you. will. die.

-Fuck please help I don't know what to do-

_Elsa FINISH THIS _NOW

Elsa lunged and there was a gurgling noise and suddenly the world made even less sense than it had before because something was in her mouth, and something was trickling down the back of her throat and there was something spraying in her face and it took her a moment to realize she'd torn out his throat with her teeth.

She spat out the chunk of trachea, gulping in fresh breaths she couldn't take through her broken nose. Blood gushed from Raphael's throat, more than she would have thought possible.

_He's making more. He's healing himself by making more blood inside his head. It's still too easy for him to heal while his body is supporting him._

Elsa lunged in again, filling her mouth with more slippery trachea, biting down and pulling her head back, shaking around to try and sever the stringy flesh that came with it. She tucked in a third time and this time she struggled with the pulsing peristalsis of the second column of flesh to work through, and the puddles of gushing blood gurgling around her jaw didn't help her accuracy one bit. Again and again she bit down and spat out flesh and muscles and tendons, unaware of the snorting, snarling, growling noises she made as she tore away with the only part of her left functioning, until finally her teeth clamped against something solid. She bit down hard, undeterred, and chipped more than one tooth for her efforts but her mind was in a fog and the pain went unnoticed as she growled and shook her head and wrestled with it until suddenly she felt the field lift from her once again, as a hand lit up to her left.

Razor sharp ice coated the inside of her mouth, forming frigid fangs, and this time when she bit down her teeth sheared through the sorcerer's spinal column and clacked together painfully.

Raphael's head rolled free, severed of its body, the glowing hand falling limp and releasing its bolt of energy off track, searing through Elsa's left cheek, melting her jaw muscle and earlobe but missing her brain entirely.

She sat there, astride Raphael's body, jaw hanging at a sickening angle with half her mouth exposed from the dangling flesh of what was once her cheek, watching his head gush impossible amounts of blood as the magic undertook the fruitless endeavor of keeping his brain alive. She could already feel the suppression field waning, and she closed her eyes as her magic slowly, but surely, ebbed back into her system. Reliable, comforting.

She'd won.

She'd won, and something inside her was bubbling up through all the pain and excitement and it ripped out of her before she could contain it.

She threw back her head and screamed. She screamed, and shouted, and bellowed as loud as she could. She roared in pain and victory and at the tragedy of her bloody glory, the voice in her mind dissolving into a raw, overwhelming blare of fury and power that overtook her mind. She howled her domination to the skies because she had struggled, and she had hurt, and she had brought pain and she had _won_, and it was exhilarating and freeing and damning all at once. She screamed because she fought, she screamed because she killed, and she screamed because this was what existing meant, and it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

She screamed until she had no breath left with which to scream, and then she screamed some more.

And when she was finally done screaming she lowered her head, opening her eyes to stare directly into Anna's.

Time froze for Elsa. She felt confused. Where had Anna come from? Had she been chained to the far wall the whole time? Elsa must have missed her through all the adrenaline.

It felt almost unreal to see her again. She still looked healthy, untouched. A little pale maybe. Of course, it had only been a day. She had been chained up in such a way that her arms were stretched above her head and she was forced to stand on the tip of her toes.

"Auuwhlaa?" She asked, her melted jaw muscle doing her no favors. Bloody saliva drizzled down her chin from the hole in her cheek.

"Auwha a uugh ouw aul ugh!" Elsa said, tears of joy beginning to replace the tears of pain she had been shedding earlier.

_I wonder what body fluids you _haven't_ gotten on you_

Elsa fell over onto her left arm, using the elbow to drag herself across the room. She never took her eyes off Anna, and the look Anna gave her never registered once in her confusion. Elsa's breathing was ragged, and every so often she accidentally snorted a small haze of blood through her crumpled nose. Every part of her hurt, even though she was beginning to numb more and more as the magic required to keep Raphael's head alive focused less and less on the field. More than once on the way across the room Elsa threw up, having to curl up from the pain it caused briefly before continuing on, slowly dragging herself towards Anna.

_You are pretty much the god of seduction  
><em>

Right now, through all the pain and all the suffering that happened today, there was nothing warmer and more inviting than Anna. Elsa felt a thousand feet tall, stronger than she'd ever been and full to the brim when she looked at Anna. She had no other purpose than to reach the girl, and she gargled contentedly the whole way there until finally she was at Anna's feet.

Elsa smiled up at her, a hideous sight, and then curled up and passed out. In the seconds that followed, a thin coating of frost rested over her body, spreading patterns like cobwebs as it thickened. Soon it was full blown ice, and still it gathered until the head in the center of the room stopped gushing blood and Elsa was in a cocoon of ice almost a foot thick that Anna's feet rested gently on top of.

And Elsa rested and dreamed of nothing.


	15. Chapter 15

Elsa opened her eyes to a room lit by the dim light of a dying fire. She was lying on the ground, and she was drenched and confused and a little sore from the stone pressing into her hip and shoulder. She blinked, then rubbed the blur from her eyes, trying to figure out why on earth she didn't have a hangover.

She opened her eyes again and saw clearly and remembered everything.

Elsa rolled back and looked up into Anna's face. The girl was staring hard back at her. Elsa smiled, Anna did not.

"Hey," she said. No reply.

"Uh... I'll get you down from there then?" She tried. Anna nodded.

Elsa stood, noting how unbelievably good she felt. She put a hand to her cheek, just to check.

"Yeah, your weird ice cocoon thing put you back together while you slept," Anna said.

"How long was I out?" Elsa asked.

Anna shrugged. "Couldn't tell down here. A few hours maybe?"

"Shit...sorry."

"Don't worry about it, gave me a place to put my feet for a bit." Elsa was really getting unnerved at the dead tone of Anna's voice.

"Are you...alright?" She hazarded. It was a stupid thing to ask, and she regretted it immediately. "I mean did they hurt you at all?"

"No, they didn't really do anything to me except chain me up. Didn't have time."

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner..." Elsa said.

"Just get me out of these chains. My arms hurt. I think one of the guards had a key if you're up for looting any bodies."

Elsa winced at the accusatory tone. Of course Anna knew what she had done. Though, it occurred to her, she clearly wasn't sure of how she'd done it.

"No, I got it, don't worry" Elsa told her. She felt the ice grow underneath her skin, felt the strength it gave her. She was unsure now of the freedom and glee she once felt at the promise of that power. Now it felt dirty. Especially under Anna's gaze.

Elsa reached up to one of Anna's arms, grasping the iron cuff around it and pulling it apart with ease. Anna jerked away at the loud snap that echoed through the room.

"What the fuck Elsa?" She shouted before she could stop herself.

"Sorry, should've warned you, they're loud."

"What? No, I mean what the fuck you just_ tore iron with your hands_!" Anna shrieked, clutching her freed arm to her side and trying not to screw up her face at the sharp pins and needles that heralded the renewed blood flow.

"It's... I dunno, something I figured out. Don't worry about it," Elsa said as she reached up for the other shackle.

"I'm pretty damn worried about it Elsa, especially after-" Anna winced, interrupted by the snap of the second shackle. She brought her second arm down, gritting her teeth at the pain.

"Especially after _that_," she finished, nodding behind Elsa.

Elsa didn't need to look to know of the mess Anna was referring to. She just hung her head.

It was then that she realized, with a widening of her eyes, just how much blood was on her. She held her arms out to the side, looking at each one of them in shock. She looked back down at where she had instinctively tucked her braid, realizing it too was red. Putting a tentative palm to her head, she realized even there there was hair coarse with dried blood.

"I'll tell you now," Anna said dryly, "your face is coated in that shit."

Anna walked past her then, though it was more like around her with the berth she gave Elsa. She skirted around the puddle of gore that Raphael's corpse still marinated in, and reached the door.

"Well?" She asked, realizing Elsa hadn't follow her.

"Anna, are you sure you're okay?" Elsa said, put off at the hostility the girl was showing her.

"No, Elsa. I'm not okay. I don't know if I'll _ever_ be okay after what I just saw you do."

"I saved you..."

"I _know_ you saved me! Thanks, wow, great," Anna was trying not to cry now. "That doesn't make the fact that you literally chewed through someone's neck in front of me any less fucked up Elsa! What happened to you never hurting anyone?"

"What? Did you think I would just get to come down and rescue you and waltz back out again without any resistance?! Do you realize the lengths they went through to stop me from getting to you?!" Elsa was shouting now, trying to figure out why this was happening, trying to work out why she couldn't just save the girl and be done with it.

"Fuck, I don't know! I don't even know why I'm here!" Anna said, finally unable to stop the torrent of tears from flowing down her cheek. "I want to go home Elsa, back to where it's warm and safe and I didn't have to worry about being owned or captured or any of this shit! I don't want to have to go to bed at night and have to remember you screaming, or look at you and remember the sound of your laughter echoing down the halls through the sound of other people screaming! I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life picture this...this fucking guy's head rolling away from his body, or the fact that it was chewed off by the first person I ever shared my bed with! I just want to go home...please..."

Elsa hung her head in shame. She knew there was nothing she could say now, no response to lift the redhead's spirits. She hated this feeling, hated that Anna was so sickened by her.

_Stay practical_

She swallowed the lump in her throat. The voice was right, now was not the time for hysterics. She would have to be the cool head here. No matter what state Anna was in, it could wait.

Elsa crossed the distance between them, not bothering to step around the pool of blood, striding right through it only adding more blood to her now red boots. Her skin stretched painfully with each movement of her blood-crusted limbs.

"Alright," she said passively as she reached Anna, who instinctively leaned away from her, her shoulders raised. "We're going back to Arendelle. Follow me."

Anna nodded and they proceeded down the hall towards the wooden door. Something occurred to Elsa.

"You...may want to close your eyes for this. I can guide you through if you want..." She said.

Anna shook her head. "I want to see."

"No you don't."

"I want to see what you did."

"Anna... Please?" Elsa's voice was shaking again. Practical, she reminded herself, cooling her emotions with a deep breath.

Anna shook her head again, staring into Elsa's eyes. She wasn't budging.

"Alright just...remember that I did what I had to," she said as she pushed the door open.

The room was warm with the stink of blood and fear, the bodies and blood where Elsa had left them. Anna ducked back quickly to vomit in the hall, Elsa deciding eventually that she was probably welcome to hold the sobbing girl's hair.

When she was done, she wiped her mouth and said with a shaky voice, "I-I changed my mind. I don't want to look."

_Stupid kid_

"Just close your eyes, I'll lead you past."

Anna nodded and let Elsa lead her through the room, stepping carefully around bodies as they went.

They made it past the room and through the winding corridors that let them back up to the surface. Anna was obedient when Elsa told her to close her eyes again as she lead her through the servant's quarters, long since abandoned after her passing.

"Okay," Elsa said as they approached the gate and she eyed the state of the area outside through the hole she'd made, "we're about to head outside...you should probably keep your eyes closed."

"Alright," Anna said.

"Wait..." Elsa said cautiously, "something's not right..."

"What? What's happening?" Anna didn't dare open her eyes.

"I'm...my magic. Raphael, the man I...the man in the room with you, was a null-caster. He stemmed the flow of my magic. It should have stopped when he died...but I can still feel my magic being nullified."

"Is...is he really dead then? He bled for a long time..." Anna said, eyes still squeezed shut.

Elsa shook her head, forgetting Anna couldn't see her. "He's dead, I checked."

Anna shrugged at that.

"Alright, anyways, I'll lead you out, just...be careful. I'm not sure what's happening, so be ready to run if I tell you," Elsa said. She didn't like this one bit.

She tore the bolt off the door, apologizing to Anna who had jumped at the noise, and pushed it open.

Her ice was still there, it seemed. Left to exist on its own, free of magic now, and still holding up the corpses in what looked like a forest of frozen death. Elsa tried not to look at the scene as she led Anna through it, casting her eyes to her feet instead and trying to ignore the feeling of her magic dying down more and more as though Raphael had come back from the dead. They passed through the gate, and it wasn't until she had told Anna she could open her eyes again and heard the younger girl's gasp of shock that she looked up.

Soldiers, as far as the eye could see, surrounded the fortress on all sides. They were armed to the teeth, and Elsa could see one with his hands lit up with white magic, zapping between his fingers and palm.

_Energy thrower. They've got a null-caster too, hidden somewhere._

-This is an army...-

_Let me out, I can take this_

-No, I just got Anna back. I saved her, and I can save her now. I'm not letting you do anything but brood angrily in my head.-

A dark skinned man stepped forward from the crowd, across the several meters of space between the front line and the two girls. Elsa saw he wore a crown on his head.

"King Alexander?" She asked, tentatively. The man laughed a deep, wholesome laugh in response.

"No," he said, "Alexander has met his fate. You speak to the new king of these lands, Kazim."

"Kazim. Alright, what do you want Kazim?"

"Are you princess Elsa of Arendelle? The ice sorceress?" He asked, calling from across the few meters he left between them.

Elsa decided this was the time and place for an honest answer. "I am."

Kazim nodded, then turned around and strode back to his army. "Then I want your death."

_Please, I can do this, I can keep her safe_

The energy thrower raised his hand at Elsa as the soldiers began to take tentative, fearful steps forwards. Their null-caster, wherever he was, was approaching, but still not near enough to stop her from using magic fairly close to herself. Elsa was given time to do nothing but prepare to make a shield of ice against the attack about to be sent at her. Maybe, she hoped, she could fight her way out away from the null-caster and eventually bring Anna to safety as they fled.

And then Anna crashed into her from the side with a shriek, and Elsa could only watch as the bolt of energy melted through her chest, and then burst out the other side.

They landed on the ground with Elsa already screaming, the advancing soldiers all jumping back in fear at the sound before shaking themselves and continuing. Blood gushed out of Anna's wound as she writhed in pain on top of her, and the world crashed down around Elsa.

_You failed_

-Please help. I need you.-

_So that's a yes then?_

-Yes-

And Elsa went away, and her body stopped for a moment, and then she jerked back to life, full again. She was grinning now, looking around at a world the entity within her had never seen. Black eyes, like a vortex sucking in all light around them, looked at Anna.

And Elsa felt everything around her now, all the life pulsing through each body that advanced upon them, she could see how the small eddies of magic within them resisted her gaze. She felt the energy thrower, readying a second bolt, and felt at the materials in his body and how they glowed with magic.

And she felt the girl writhing in pain on top of her. How her warmth was spreading out onto the ground, how the light was beginning to fade from her as her mind shut down and started dying. She felt how Elsa's feelings for her were coloring her actions, and she realized she didn't care.

Elsa reached her hands around Anna in a hug, letting her magic flow through to the girl, sealing her wounds and reassembling her organs, replenishing her blood and cleaning the mess of spare tissue. Anna gasped as breath filled her new lungs, feeding blood pumped from her freshly built heart. Elsa had made sure it was a good heart, strong and muscular. She could do that now.

And she smiled at Anna and said, "_Hi, I'm Elsa. I believe we've met._"

And then she stood up, placing Anna carefully on the ground, facing the soldiers who had again faltered in the face of her actions and the piercing sound of her voice. She was aware of every inch of each of them, aware of how they existed and how their blood jumped around through them and the electricity that fizzled about through their nerves and brains, all suddenly deafeningly loud to Elsa. She felt the magic of the sorcerer raising his hand, ready to throw more energy energy at her.

She heard it sizzle through the air, looking down as hit her square in the chest and she felt the white hot energy dissipate as she absorbed it and sent it away to the nowhere that magic was pulled from. She deteriorated the ice beneath her skin, not needing its weak, imprecise means of defense anymore.

She studied the water in the energy thrower's body, and then froze all of it. The man's body locked in place as his flesh was shriveled and destroyed, and the statue that had once been a person fell over. Elsa laughed. She could probably do that to every last one of the terrified looking soldiers hesitating around her right now, the small glow of resilient magic in each of them worth nothing against her power.

But she decided that was boring.

A man pushed himself to the front lines, sweating in concentration. Elsa looked to him, and realized that he was the null-caster. It had occurred to her that she was feeling a little bit weak, though the small dent in her power that the man was making had gone mostly unnoticed. She stretched her hand out, feeling the suppression field around her and seeing the way it extended from his body, and then closed her fist, forcing the magic back inside him and quelling it. She felt around the opening that his magic poured through into from the nowhere dimension, and she tore it wider, suppressing the magic that tried to surge through.

The man's brow furrowed, and he sweat more, and then he said, "wait...something's not..."

Elsa opened her hand, letting his newly unleashed magic rush back into him, tearing his body apart from the surge. There was a cry amidst the soldiers as his blood stained their clothing.

Elsa grew bored of them, and turned instead to the redhead who had let out a shriek. She leaned down and put her arms under the trembling girl's shoulders, hoisting her up to let her stand.

She planted a deep, long kiss against Anna lips.

"_You don't know how long I've been wanting to do that,_" she said as she pulled back, turning around quickly to wave an arm out at the world around her.

All around them, ice began to emerge from the ground. Long spikes, growing and impaling soldiers like she had done in the courtyard. Only this time it extended for miles around her, the fleeing army finding no mercy at their backs.

"Elsa...?" Anna said, trembling as she tried to shut out the screams around her.

"_Right,_" Elsa said, turning to her, "_can't forget about you_."

She pounced on Anna, the two girls tumbling to the ground in a spin that let Anna land atop Elsa before the older girl rolled them so that she was on top, lips locked with the struggling redhead.

"Elsa!" Anna cried as she tore her head to the side. "Elsa stop! What are you doing?! They're running Elsa, they're not trying to hurt us anymore, Elsa stop it!"

Elsa nuzzled happily into Anna's neck.

"Elsa please," Anna begged, her sobbing beginning again. Then Elsa looked her right in the eyes, and for the first time Anna saw the black pits they had become.

"Oh God," she whispered, realizing who she was talking to.

Elsa smiled again. "_Love you,_" she said, showering kisses onto Anna's forehead.

Anna looked up as Elsa began to kiss lower. A soldier was hanging, dripping blood just to the side of her head, roaring in pain at the spike of ice suspending him as he slowly slid further and further onto it.

"I'm sorry," Anna whispered to him as hands roamed her body with longing fervor. She closed her eyes.

"I'm so sorry."

* * *

><p>Elsa opened her eyes, and for the second time that day wondered where she was only briefly, until the memories came flooding back.<p>

She lifted her head with a jolt from where it rested on Anna's chest, looking at the sickening scene around them that was bathed in moonlight. Just how long had she been asleep?

_I think I did a solid job_

-You're a monster...-

_We're a monster_

She looked down to Anna, and was met with a look of pure hatred.

"Anna, I..." She couldn't even apologize. What words were there than could forgive her for what she had done?

"Just take us home," Anna said. Her voice matched the world around them. Cold and dead.

Elsa hung her head, and walked through the sculptures of agony towards the harbor, hoping that there would be ships there left by the army.

Hoping that she could go home and forget this awful place.

* * *

><p>"They're what?" Elsa asked of the wary sailor before her.<p>

Even in front of the fire in the private study that Elsa's father would conduct business in, the man shivered uncontrollably. His was a cold no fire could cure.

"Dead," he repeated through chattering teeth. "The storm came upon us so soon... We could do nothing but launch the rowboat and begin boarding passengers."

"I don't understand...why is my family not with you then?" Elsa asked, the reality of what the man had said still not fully hitting her.

"The main truck...while we were fleeing to the escape vessel it snapped from its holdings and swung down. It...it struck against both his highness the prince, your brother, and her majesty the queen, your mother, and...well the king just...stopped, I suppose. We tried to pull him onto the rowboat but he was too strong, crying out how he wouldn't leave his family. I beg your forgiveness, but if we hadn't left him when we did we'd have been lost to the waves with him."

Elsa exhaled, shaking as badly as the sailor.

"You're dismissed," was all she said.

The man stood up, moving towards the door. "If it's of any help," he said as he moved opened the door, "the storm was unnaturally sudden...I would suspect foul play." And he left her.

She turned in her chair, shaking and trying to think through the fog of panic she felt rising in her. She stared up, to the portrait of her father, that the man himself had hung above the fireplace. She used to think it was such a gaudy thing to have, but she realized it may be her only connection to the man now.

"What about me...?" She asked it softly.

_You don't have to put up with this_

-Shut up-

_I can shut it out_

-You aren't welcome in my thoughts anymore-

_I've never been welcome, and yet here I am, ready to fix your problems for you_

-Oh God what do I do...-

_You don't _have_ to do anything. You can leave it to me. Let all the guilt and pain and sadness wash away._

-You're evil-

_I am what I am. What I am is all the things you're struggling to shut away about yourself._

-Please stop, I can't...I can't do this again-

_Yes you can. Why shouldn't you? After everything you've been through Elsa._

-I want them back so badly...it feels like my chest is being torn open-

_It's okay, you can make it stop. I can make it stop._

-Why did he leave me for them?! Why isn't he here with me?!-

_Does it matter?_

-Please...please help me...-

_You know what you have to do_

-How long this time?-

_For good. I'm not a toy, I want to experience the world. Think of it like ending all the pain, but not as permanently._

-I can't...I can't do that to Arendelle. I can't do that to Anna...-

_Anna? Anna who hasn't said a word to you since you woke up?_

-That's _your_ fault-

_I could be with her. Take what you're too scared to. We could have her again._

-I don't want that for her-

_Yes you do. You want her that badly and we both know it. You risked your life for her, killed for her. You don't have one pure thought about her, you're still too scared to set her free._

-Please stop-

_I can give you everything you ever wanted, Elsa._

-No...-

_Yes. I can, you know I can. I can make the pain stop. I always could._

-I'm so scared-

_You don't have to be._

-You won't hurt her?-

_I'll do right by her, you know I will_

-...okay-

_Again_

-Okay.-

_Again!_

-_Okay!_-

-_See how much better this is Elsa? C'mon now, think of all the fun we'll have!_-

"Elsa...?" Anna said, as she slowly opened the door to the study and eased in. "Look I-I wanted to talk. About what ha-" Anna gasped, jumping back and bumping into the wall behind her.

Elsa looked up at her with those dead, black eyes and grinned.

"_Me again!"_

* * *

><p><strong>End of Part 1<strong>

**Well, it's been a riveting...what, 9 days since I started writing this? I've been quite pleased at the feedback you guys have given me, especially at the start when you were all appreciating my sense of humor. That was super cute while it lasted, and it kind of feels bad now that things had to get so serious. Kind of like kicking a puppy, only if that feeling was also a good feeling at the same time. This story originated with my musings on the previous chapter, and after like 2 weeks of ironing that one scene out in my head I felt the need to write it down. Eventually, I worked out how that scene may come to pass, and finally crapped out a story around it that's taken off more than I would have thought. So that's super cool, and I hope to not disappoint too much in the future.  
><strong>

**This all comes with the caveat that now that part 1 is finished, I've got only the smallest fragments of what's to come worked out. I know I've said it before in the past and had it turn out to be a huge god damn lie, but I'm quite serious here when I say that between not having any real content planned in my head to work towards, for once, and the fact that I am going to have a lot less spare time than I had while initially writing this, the updates are going to be way less frequent.**

**With that said, hang tight, I promise I won't abandon this, and I hope you all enjoyed Part 1 of Duality!**


	16. Part 2: Chapter 16

**Roughly one year later**

Their escape had been thwarted, their pleas had been in vain, and now the time had come for the two panting, scared men to fight to the death. The sounds of the shouts of encouragement from around them was drowned out by the rush of blood in their ears and the steady, elevated pumping of their hearts as they raised trembling fists and circled one another. One of them, smaller but not by much, was having trouble swallowing enough air, and his opponent took advantage by inhaling a large 'whoop' of oxygen that went straight to his brain, and then charging with a startling roar. His clumsy flurry of fists was met mostly by forearm, behind which the smaller man cowered in shock, and eventually the melee devolved into the two grappling. The larger man quickly won out, forcing his opponent to the floor. Shutting out the refreshed bout of begging from the smaller man, he pinned him to the floor and hammered his fists into him wherever they found an opening until his opponent curled up on the floor of the throne room and began to take his beating in earnest as his consciousness slipped.

Anna shifted uncomfortably on her throne, noticing her wine was almost empty. She'd been sipping it more and more frequently for lack of better distraction the past few matches. She gave a curt nod to the boy to her left, who hurried to refill her glass.

To her right, slouched towards Anna with a leg slung over the right armrest of her father's throne and an elbow on the left with which to prop her head on her hand, sat the queen. She nursed a glass herself, the void of her eyes transfixed on the scene before her, her expression plain as she concentrated on the circle of soldiers cheering on her two most recent captives.

Anna glanced at her and rolled her eyes. "Elsa," she said in a low voice, receiving no response from the distracted queen.

_Elsa_," she hissed, louder this time. "Your eyes."

"_Hm_?" Elsa glanced towards her.

"Turn your eyes back on," Anna said.

"_Oh, shit, sorry,_" Elsa mumbled, squinting her black eyes shut and then opening them again. White, with a blue center. "Better?"

"Thanks," Anna said, turning her attention back to her wine.

"_You getting bored?_" Elsa asked her.

"You know I don't share your weird fascination with this," Anna said flatly. It was true, though she had finally come to terms with the fights Elsa insisted on hosting as entertainment, as she had with a great deal many things the past few seasons, she had been unfalteringly vocal about her distaste for the practice.

As if on cue, the large man sat back from his broken adversary, out of breath and gasping, looking to the floor at Elsa's feet.

"Please," he said, wiping the sweat off his brow, "your grace, the man is beaten. Let it end here, I beg you, there is no more fight to be had."

Elsa stared at him for some time, smiling as he shook at her prolonged silence. Finally, she said, "_the rules were made quite clear to you, were they not?_"

He nodded an unsteady head, saying, "t-they were, your grace, but this fight, this... Do you truly mean for me to kill this man?"

"_Have you ever killed anyone before?_" Elsa asked.

The man shook his head this time, eyes still downcast.

"_Well, think of it as a fantastic learning opportunity._"

"I do not think I want to learn of this, your grace."

"_Not very many people do. Still, I did say 'to the death'. I recall that was exactly what I had said. You guys heard me at least, right?_" Her eyes moved then to the crowd of soldiers and royal guards, who let out a rousing roar to the affirmative. Elsa smiled at them, happily joining in the din with her own voice. The fights were open for everyone to be audience to, the large group gathered being the smaller portion of castle staff of the persuasion to take advantage of the offer.

"_See?_" Elsa turned again to the peasant as the cheers died down, "_they all seem to remember. Fight to the death. Unless you want it to be your death?_"

"No, your grace, I do not," the man replied, shoulders still raised from the shouts that had surrounded him.

"_I bet he doesn't want it to be his either,_" Elsa said, nodding to the smaller man, still curled up. "_I'm not hearing much from him on the matter though. Maybe I'd agree if you both could come to terms on it stopping. Who knows, maybe he's enjoying his time? That would be a shame to deprive him of all that fun, and he certainly hasn't spoken to the contrary._"

"My opponent is unconscious, your grace!" His voice was growing panicked.

"_And whose fault is that, now?_"

"Elsa!" Anna admonished. She knew not to push her luck with the sorceress, but she also knew where she stood on keeping her in check in a great number of things, and teasing the peasants was definitely one of them.

"_Fine,_" Elsa said, knowing exactly the line she had crossed. She stared hard at Anna for a second before turning back and continuing, "_but the case still stands, the fight ends with one of you._"

"At your command, I am to stare death in the face. May it bring you happiness," he spat.

Elsa's eyes flashed black for a second before she replied, "_I disagree, you haven't looked at me once._"

Elsa sat back in her throne then, smiling as the sound of fists on flesh eventually resumed, soon accompanied by the voices of soldiers. A few coins traded hands amongst them as bets were won and lost. Elsa chuckled at that, and motioned for her own quivering wine girl to top her up.

The girl scampered over to her and set about her task, trying to ignore her queen's eyes roaming her body.

"You're terrible," Anna said, turning away from the thoroughly harassed peasant. "And I see you ogling that maid, don't think I don't see that just because you turned your eyes back off."

"_Oh come on,_" Elsa said guiltily, her eyes returning to normal, "_look at her she's _so cute."

Anna leaned over to study the trembling thing, who stood as still as she could under the scrutiny, eyes cast downwards. "Huh, she _is_ actually pretty cute. Can I have one?"

"_Fine, but if I don't get to ogle mine then you don't get to ogle yours,_" Elsa said with a grin.

"As long as quick, appreciative glances are still allowed, otherwise what's the point?" Anna countered.

Elsa smiled, leaning over to give Anna a quick kiss. "_Deal._"

She turned happily to stare back in front of her, giving an excited clap at the sobbing man with bloodied fists who know lay on the floor of the throne room, staring vacantly up at the ceiling. "_Good job, you!_" She called out to him, before turning to Anna. "_This guy seems pretty cool, I'd totally have dinner with this guy, we should have dinner with him, what do you think?_"

Anna snorted at the queen's excited tone. It was a strange form of entertainment of Elsa's. The peasants would be taken from the streets of nearby Arendelle towns and settlements and villages and all made to engage in one fight to the death against one other. Anna had always assumed there would be recompense for the victor, but it seemed Elsa hadn't really bothered coming up with any reward, having responded with, "_education pays for itself. Besides, think about how much better life must be for people who have almost lost theirs,_" when Anna had brought it up, and refusing to be corrected. Elsa had eventually found herself as fascinated with the state of person after a fight as in one, and so 'a meal with the queen' became the unofficial prize for not spending the rest of ones' life dying on the floor of the throne room.

"I could do dinner with the guy," Anna replied. "He seems alright. A little standoffish, but nobody's themselves when they're hungry."

"_Great! Let's head off now, I'm starving,_" Elsa said.

"Speaking of which, why do _you_ let yourself get hungry so long before a meal?" Anna asked, truly bewildered. Ever since Elsa had...lost herself, she had been powerful enough to not need to eat. She still did, of course, not wanting to miss out on all the joys of food. Anna had found herself jealous of the power, but far more jealous at the fact that Elsa no longer needed to pass waste either. She had made the mistake of telling Elsa to at least take a few shits out of solidarity, and was simply told that "_it's disrespectful to not use every part of the animal, Anna._"

"_Because,_" Elsa was explaining now, "_I want the authentic experience of eating food, including the buildup. Did you know that anticipation of food is eighty percent of the flavor?_"

"That's the smell of food, Elsa."

"_Hence the anticipation. Speaking of the smell of food, let's hurry it up,_" Elsa said, before turning to the peasant, still lying on the ground with an empty expression as he stared to the ceiling, and sending her magic into him to set his broken fingers back into their joints and knit the split skin of his knuckles together. He didn't react beyond bringing a hand up to look at.

"_See that he's cleaned up and brought to dinner,_" Elsa told a nearby servant.

"I-I'm the wine boy, your grace."

"_Wow, congratulations on your promotion!_" Elsa said, already turning away to follow Anna out of the room.

* * *

><p>"<em>So, you've calmed down a lot,<em>" Elsa said to the peasant in front of her, as the three people seated at the table happily stuffed their faces.

"I've always found calm in food, your grace," the man admitted.

"Amen to that," Anna said through a mouthful of turkey. "What's your name, by the way?"

He looked down bashfully, saying, "Nathan, your highness."

"_You can drop the 'your grace, your highness' thing now, we're in private and I'm not trying to intimidate the shit out of you,_" Elsa said.

"Oh, I-" he began, but Elsa interrupted him, "_and no stammering about how you're uncomfortable with not showing the proper respects. Nobody cares how comfortable you are, trust me._"

"_Now,_" she continued, tearing a piece of turkey meat off the massive leg on her plate, which she refused to let the chefs carve any further, "_I've made a habit out of letting people ask me any one question, so shoot. What weird shit have you always wanted to ask a queen? Go ahead, ask away, anything._"

"Long as it's not too personal," Anna added, mouth still full, "guy tried to get too personal once and Elsa literally made him eat his own foot."

"_No I didn't, you talked me down from that, remember?_"

Anna swallowed finally. "Yes, I did, and then you went and found him later while you thought I was asleep and did it anyways."

"_Holy shit, is _that _why you wouldn't talk to me for the whole day after?_"

"No, that was because of...something else," Anna said, trailing off and blushing slightly. She quickly perked back up though, turning to Nathan and saying, "anyways, go ahead, ask away!" Anna tore another piece off her turkey, eyes fixed on the peasant with interest.

The man stared at them, then down at his plate in silence as he contemplated his next words.

"_Wow, you're really putting a lot of thought into this. See Anna? I told you this guy was worth having dinner with._"

"What sorts of questions are usually asked?" He wondered, looking back up at them.

Elsa looked at Anna, then back at Nathan, shrugging. "_Usually it's pretty boring,_" she confessed. "_I'm pretty sure the most common question is either 'what's it like eating like this every day' or 'why are you doing this to me' but the second one's usually said through a lot of tears._"

"I admit," Nathan said, "I find myself somewhat torn between two questions."

"Oh yeah? Well voice 'em both, we'll see how we feel," Anna said.

Nathan hesitated, before replying, "well the first one's more of a request, if you'll forgive me for-"

"_That depends on what it is,_" Elsa interrupted.

"Yeah, you definitely don't want to go asking Elsa any favors," Anna said before indulging in more wine.

"_Unless you're her,_" Elsa said, jabbing a thumb in Anna's direction.

"Unless you're me," Anna agreed as she lowered her glass.

"_Then asking favors is like your fucking job._"

"Fuck you bitch," Anna said, throwing her wine at Elsa and not even bothering to watch as the queen vaporized it in mid air, turning instead to an astonished looking Nathan and saying, "so tell us, your request and question."

"Uuh...maybe I shouldn't..." He began nervously.

"Shut up and say it Nathan," Anna said, raising her empty glass in the air to signal a nearby servant who came to fill it.

Nathan took a respectable gulp from his own glass, before saying, "well, you know that trick for small children where you pretend to take their nose?"

"_Only it's just your thumb? Yeah, I remember that,_" Elsa said. "_That actually confused the shit out of Elsa when she was a kid, but she'd never admit it. What about it?_"

Anna always found it odd to listen to Elsa talk about herself from before she had given in to the voice in her head.

"Well, I had a chance to taste of your grace's astounding healing abilities, and now I-" He was interrupted again as Anna burst into laughter around the piece of turkey she had, once again, placed in her mouth at the most irresponsible timing.

"Holy shit!" she cackled. "Do it! Elsa do it, Nathan this doesn't count as your question. I can't believe I never thought of this, you have to do it Elsa!"

Elsa grinned in spite of herself, "_A for effort Nathan. I like your style. Give me a sec so I can make sure I don't bleed all over the place._" After a pause, Elsa reached up and grasped her nose between her middle and pointer fingers and pulled it clean off, fortunately refraining from trying to say "got your nose". Beneath, there was an ugly stump with two holes, but true to Elsa's word her blood hovered just at the edge of the gaping flesh.

Nathan's jaw dropped, though not literally, there was enough of that horseshit going on already. "More and more, today is feeling like a dream," he said in awe.

Elsa rolled her eyes, giving her amputated nose a light toss over to him where it bonked against his forehead. He watched it drop onto his food.

He looked back up at Elsa, the two of them casually ignoring the redhead who was laughing so hard she had begun to choke on her own turkey, asking, "can I uh...grab a different plate?"

"_Go for it,_" Elsa said, her face already healed with a proud new nose standing tall. She motioned to the servant, who brought a new plate over quickly.

As Nathan filled his new plate, he continued. "My second question is probably far less entertaining," he said.

"_We'll forgive you the transgression, you've already been all kinds of entertaining,_" Elsa responded, sipping her own wine and continuing to ignore Anna's choked pleas for assistance.

"Is it true?" He asked. "Is it true that you tore out a man's beating heart and ate it?"

"_Damn,_" Elsa said, before being briefly interrupted by the cough of Anna finally clearing her throat. "_Were you this morbid before the fight or did I awaken something in you?_"

"I...I'm not actually sure. I always thought I would be more...distressed? I killed a man, but...I feel oddly calm," Nathan said, looking down at his own hands. "Maybe even more so than I was before all of this."

"_Well, I guess that makes you our lucky fifth,_" Elsa said, brightening up further. "_Usually it's just tears and sobbing, but you really got your shit together, Nathan. I don't say this to a lot of people, but you're my kind of fucked up._" She beamed, Nathan gave a weak, confused smile back.

"_Anyways, to answer your question, no. I never actually ate a guy's heart,_" Elsa said. "_Never actually eaten any part of a person before, come to think of it..._"

"You almost ate that one wizard's throat," Anna rasped. "That Raphael guy, remember?"

"The fight with Raphael?" Nathan was suddenly fascinated. "I had heard that was a glorious battle!"

"Not really," Anna said, her voice finally beginning to return. "Mostly Elsa just got punched in the face and cried a lot."

"_I would like to point out,_" Elsa cut in, "_that that was the weaker side of myself. I do not make a habit of crying._"

"You ate Raphael's throat?" Nathan asked.

"No, she just kind of chewed through it. Don't worry though, he was an asshole, he totally deserved it," Anna said.

"_You know, that raises a good question. I've always wanted to eat raw meat,_" Elsa said conversationally.

Anna blinked at her. "That's not really a good question."

"_Okay no, haven't you always been at least a bit curious?_" Elsa asked.

"Nooo..." Anna responded, "no I haven't. I don't want to eat raw meat, that sounds gross. I especially don't want to eat raw human meat. That just sounds like the fast track to spending the rest of my life taking a shit."

"_Whatever Anna, what's important is that I want to try raw human meat._"

"Which I'm maintaining is fucking weird, Elsa," the girl stated firmly.

"_What? No it's not. I am the poster-child for normalcy, Anna._"

"Alright, Nathan, you weigh in on this," Anna said as she turned once more to the man, "you would never eat raw human just out of curiosity, right?"

"Uh...no?" Nathan tried.

"_Hold up, __that's a bullshit question when you ask like that, you know he's just agreeing cause of how you're asking,_" Elsa said, before taking a bite of her turkey and aiming the large drumstick at Nathan. "_Look, Nathan, if I told you to eat raw human, would you eat raw human?_"

"What? How is _that_ not a bullshit question?"

"_Because, Anna, if I ever ate raw human, it would be _me_ telling me to eat the raw human, right? So it would make sense that we have the same motivations, otherwise how would the question be relevant in the first place?_"

Anna stared at Elsa for a while, then slowly picked up her wine glass and drained it in one go.

"Alright," she said, slamming the glass back down a little too hard, "let's try that again."

* * *

><p>"<em>He was interesting,<em>" Elsa slurred as they made their way down the halls.

"He was," Anna slurred back. "Do you think he knows how to get back home from here?"

Elsa shrugged, "_I have no idea...why do you ask?_"

"I...I think we left him back there."

"_He'll manage, peasants are resourceful little things,_" Elsa said, sliding her arm affectionately around Anna's waist.

Anna snuggled up against her as they walked along. She had long since given up the thought of directly opposing Elsa's new personality. While she longed for the girl she had once known to return to her, the girl Elsa had become was not an entirely different person. Anna had found herself falling easily into the routine of enjoying the affection between them in the meantime, appreciating the less reserved attitude of this new Elsa.

It was not without its downsides, though. There were many things Elsa did that Anna had found monstrous. She had cried so much during the first month of Elsa's change, locked in her room alone. But eventually she ran out of tears and, for the second time, Anna learned to harden herself against the world Elsa had made around her. At least in this one she was no longer a slave girl, even though there was still a definite limit to how far she would push against Elsa's will.

Elsa let out an amused huff after a few seconds of silenced walking, "_I can't believe he brought up the whole Raphael thing, I had almost forgotten that happened._"

Anna snorted, "I'm glad you find entertainment in that, _I _got to be the damsel in distress the whole fuckin' time."

"_Yeah but you didn't get unceremoniously born three times in a row that day._"

"_Three_ times? When was the third?"

"_Back at the castle, the first time was when Elsa was fighting Raphael and I sorta half slipped out for a second._"

Anna tried to recall through the pleasant haze of alcohol in her system. "Oh yeah!" She suddenly remembered, "that was when you were stabbing his neck, I remember that."

"_Yeah and I totally freaked him out, that was awesome._"

"Well, I wouldn't say it was awesome, you freaked _me_ out a lot that day too."

"_I made it better. I totally kissed you. And we made love. At least I think we made love...did we make love?_"

"You groped my ass a little, that was about it on my end. Then you tore my shirt open and just freaked out a bit and got yourself off while staring at my boobs before passing out in them."

"_Wow, I _am _romantic!_" Elsa said with a smile, as they rounded a corner towards their quarters.

Anna giggled, "you were kind of dumb when you first got out," she said. "Remember all the stupid stuff you wanted to do?"

"_Yes! Like eat all the food in the kitchen because it all tasted so good?!_"

"Ugh, and then you wouldn't stop jumping off the roofs of the turrets just because you could survive the fall, and nobody could sleep for three days because we kept hearing you putting craters in the courtyard."

Elsa laughed at that. "_That was a lot of fun, you should join me for that sometime._"

"No, I think I'm happy experiencing the parts of life I can live through."

Elsa smiled down at her. "_I _do _recall,_" she said, deeper this time, more sultry, "_the thing I wanted to try most of all was you._"

Anna stopped in her tracks as she leaned up into a deep kiss, Elsa's tongue beginning to brush against her lips.

"Mmmh!" She said suddenly, backing out and ignoring the displeased whine that came from the blond pressed against her. "That reminds me!"

"_Huh?_" Elsa said, drunk and already feeling the stirrings of lust within her protesting the sudden interruption.

"That night, the one you fed that guy his own foot, do you remember that?" Anna began.

"_Wait,_" Elsa said, eyes furrowed in thought, "_hold on, I think...yes, yes the mood is definitely ruined now._"

"Shut up, my point is that I didn't speak to you the whole night because that was when we were "making love" as you so romantically put it, and then you did The Thing."

"_You mean the thing where-_"

"Yes, The Thing where you tried to stick your finger in my butt."

Elsa laughed, picking Anna up by her rear and pressing her to the bedroom door they had arrived at. She nuzzled her face into the redhead's neck. "_I'm pretty sure I recall a squeal of delight from that particular evening._"

"That was me screaming."

"_In delight though._"

"There were no delights whatsoever that night."

"_Alright, well, I know _I _had fun,_" Elsa said, leaning back to stare at Anna.

"Look," Anna swayed forward a little before coming back to Earth, "my point is, no butt stuff."

"_No butt stuff,_" Elsa agreed with a smile, opening the door behind Anna.

"I mean it," Anna said as she was carried into their chambers.

"_Yup,_" Elsa said, dropping Anna on the bed and silencing her squeal of surprise with another deep kiss, her arms snaking back around Anna's waist and dipping deeper to grasp a firm buttock in her hand. Anna moaned into her mouth, leaning forward to press her body against Elsa's. Her hands went around Elsa's back, trying and failing through drunken lust to properly work the laces to the older girl's dress.

Elsa smiled against her mouth, reaching an arm back against her own chest and tearing the dress off.

Anna sighed, leaning back to say, "I suppose that means mine's going the same way?" She asked, slightly out of breath.

"_'Fraid so,_" Elsa replied, her hands slowly coming back around and sliding up Anna's torso, making the younger girl gasp.

"I...I like this dress," she managed.

"_You'll just have to find a new one to like,_" Elsa purred, stopping just under the swell of Anna's breasts and gathering the material beneath her arms before slowly pulling it apart, smiling down at Anna as her pink, flushed skin was revealed inch by inch by the seam ripping down the middle of her torso. She stared at the fit, flat stomach she saw, at the swell of two firm breasts that fell free of the material, and the bump at the apex of her shapely thighs capped with a patch of orange hair. All hers.

Anna reached up, already familiar with the predatory gaze Elsa was so fond of aiming at her body, feeling the ridges of the queens spine on her back as her hands went lower over the older girls rear, down the back of her smooth thighs. It had seemed strange to her the first time she had realized her head was the only place Elsa was actually capable of growing hair. Magic, it seemed, had a very specific agenda when it came to beauty.

When the dress was perfectly in half, spread out to reveal Anna's nakedness, Elsa went to work tearing sideways along the sleeves as the younger girl below her slid her hand around and inwards on Elsa's thighs. Elsa gasped, her eyes squeezing shut at the feeling of a finger beginning to probe her sex.

Anna grinned at the sound. Elsa was making this easy on her, she knew. The sorceress had total control of her nerves, and there had been times when she had happily made Anna work to please her queen. Tonight, it seemed, would not be one of those nights. Still, Anna relished the sound of the girl above her, the mighty sorceress of Arendelle brought to gasps by Anna's curious fingers. She nuzzled a thumb against Elsa's sensitive nub of flesh, making the girl's breath and arms shake as she worked on Anna's dress, letting the younger girl have her fill of her first. Anna always had Elsa first, as Elsa was at least still able to function under her ministrations.

Anna pressed a finger against Elsa's folds, feeling them give way as she entered the wetness within, her thumb never stopping. Elsa, on the other hand, stopped completely, running her arms underneath Anna's back and barely restraining a moan as she buried her head into the crook of Anna's neck. Anna drank in the sensation of Elsa's quivering depths, squeezing almost tentatively around her and increasing in fervor as she sped her thumb up. She slowly rotated her finger around, feeling every dimension of Elsa's muscular walls, before beginning to slide it in and out.

Elsa moaned in earnest into Anna's neck as the girl carried on, pressing her own torso to Anna's, her legs slowly sliding open and as she subconsciously tilted her butt upwards.

She bucked suddenly as Anna dipped a second finger in, the sudden sensation causing her to clench against Anna, who had to work her finger the rest of the way in. She continued her in and out motion, slowly picking up speed. Her other hand gently caressing Elsa's toned cheek and guiding the thrusts it began to make against her hand. Elsa's moans increased in pitch, and Anna knew she was close. She picked her speed up, pressing her thumb for firmly into Elsa while her fingers made soft, wet sounds as they probed her.

Elsa's head suddenly rose as she arched her back and a high keening came from her throat. Her body shuddered, and she propped herself up on her elbows and pressed a hungry kiss to Anna's lips. Anna hooked her fingers up into the hardened ridge of flesh at Elsa's entrance, pulsing her fingers against it as hard as she could. Elsa screamed into Anna's mouth. She then withdrew from the girl while thrusting her hips down and impaling herself with a final shudder onto Anna's fingers. She squeezed around them and a hot wetness leaked out of her. Her mouth opened in a silent snarl, and Anna held her thumb still and pressed it into the girl's pleasure center, riding out her orgasm. Elsa's eyes cracked open slightly to stare down at the girl as she pulsed around Anna's fingers, the sensations coursing through her making her unable to stop them from returning to their full, black void. Anna smiled up, used to the lapse and pleased at the loss of control she could instigate in Elsa. She kept her ministrations up until Elsa came back to Earth and collapsed against her, panting.

"_Fuck,_" she finally gasped, falling back against Anna again briefly, before pushing herself back up on impressively steady arms to look down at her lover, still not quite able to bring her eyes back to normal. "_You are getting good at that, I think I've trained you well,_" Elsa said. Anna smirked up at her, bringing her fingers to her mouth and slowly sucking each one clean. For that little display, she finished tearing the rest of Anna's dress before lifting the girl up, resting her further on the bed, and fully climbed on herself before pressing a deep kiss into the redhead's lips.

Her hands began to roam Anna appreciatively, finally settling on the younger girl's breasts and massaging them at a slow pace. Anna moaned into Elsa's mouth, her own legs spreading automatically at the feeling. Finally, Elsa leaned back again from her, her hands moving down from Anna's breasts to rest gently on her torso.

"_Hey Anna,_" she said with a wicked smile.

"Huh? What's wr-_ha_!" Anna yelped in surprise as an electric surge of pleasure burst from Elsa's hands into her abdomen. Her body twitched briefly, the shock about as low as Elsa could manage, but still enough to make Anna start to lose control.

"V-very f-funny," she gasped eventually. The pleasurable jolts Elsa could hit her with, she'd found, apparently made an erogenous zone out of any nerves in her body, and her abdominal muscles were clenched tight. "Y-you're gonna b-be so smug about t-that later, I-I just kn-_HA_!" Anna squealed again as Elsa's hands put another jolt into her, the older girl grinning. Anna decided to shut up and let her do her thing.

Elsa moved her hands back up to her breasts, sending the occasional jolt through Anna, picking up intensity and duration until soon Anna was unable to contain her squeals. Elsa's slow massage reduced her to a quivering, tensed puddle of limbs in seconds. Finally, she leaned back again, staring down at the girl still trembling and jerking beneath her. She slid her hands down to Anna's thighs, giving them a firm squeeze and finding herself already getting wet again at the muscle she felt there. Her little Anna had been working hard on her legs, and she felt especially appreciative.

She released a loving bolt into Anna's thighs, enjoying the way the muscle tensed up as hard as it could beneath her as Anna screamed from the sensation and how it dissipated ever closer to her sex. Elsa slowly rubbed her hands along Anna thighs, occasionally sending pleasurable jolts into Anna, closer and closer to her slick folds. She looked up at her, saw the girl staring back, chest heaving as she moaned and yelped in ecstasy. She had long since lost the ability to speak, but she pleaded with her eyes, and Elsa took pity.

She slid her hands around and towards Anna's center, one thumb beginning to copy Anna's circular rubbing, and two fingers sliding easily into Anna's velvety entrance to copy the steady rhythm of her pumping. The girls moans went back to gasps and squeaks, and Elsa continued her slow torture of the girl, until Anna was trembling with want, her hips bucking occasionally as they went back and forth in frustration to meet Elsa's pace.

"E-Elsa," she finally managed. "P-please..."

Elsa smiled up at her, letting the memory of the longing and desire in the younger girl's eyes sear themselves into her memory, and then let a large, prolonged surge of magic flow into Anna.

Every muscle in the redhead's body clenched, her back arched upwards as far as it could go and her mouth stretched as wide it could in a silent scream. Elsa poured her magic into the girl, searing her nerves with more pleasure than the her body had ever been meant to create for itself. She shut off the painful sensitivity the sensation would have engendered, letting Anna's flesh run wild solely with pure bliss.

It was the best part of her night, feeling Anna's tight walls squeeze as hard as they could around her, finding no give in her rigid, rock solid fingers as they pressed up into the sensitive spot in her. Elsa gazed fondly down at the mask of ecstasy the redhead wore as her face reddened from the intensity. Anna managed to move enough to wrap her arms around Elsa's back, her nails raking down skin she knew she could never have a hope of tearing.

Elsa let her stay like that for a minute. Then, she decided, a minute more, because she was in a good mood. Finally, she allowed her magic to taper off. After a few long seconds, Anna finally gasped a huge lungful of breath, before it hitched again and her body jerked around violently.

Finally, after another long minute, Anna came down from her high, and lay limp against the bed save for the frequent spasms that wracked her body. She stayed there for a while, slowly getting her breath back under control. Elsa gently extracted her fingers from Anna, always enjoying how soaked her hand ended up during their sessions. She licked it clean, savoring the taste of Anna, before picking the girl up and putting her under the covers with her head rested on a pillow.

"Mmm..." Anna said gently, still unable to speak.

"_I know,_" Elsa responded happily as she gazed down at her redhead.

"Water," Anna finally managed to croak out, voice laced with drowsiness.

Elsa smiled and got up to wander over to the dresser. She could have hydrated Anna with a thought, but she liked the ritual of fetching the glass of water for her. She returned and put the glass against Anna's lip, tipping small amounts into her mouth for the girl to swallow. When the glass was empty, she lazily made it disappear into nothingness before crawling into bed beside Anna, gently rolling the girl to her side, facing away from Elsa as the older girl pressed her body against the warmth of Anna's back, relishing the softness of Anna's soft butt in her waist, and wrapped a possessive arm around her.

"Elsa," Anna mumbled quietly.

"_Mmhm?_" Came the reply.

"Do I ever tell you how much I love your hands?"

Elsa's mouth curved into a smile against the red hair it was pressed to. "_I could stand to hear it again._"

Anna weakly took the hand Elsa was using to rub her soft abdomen into her own, bringing it up to her mouth and kissing each knuckle in turn and then clutching the hand to her chest.

Elsa giggled, before resting her head near Anna's shoulder with a happy sigh. "_I love you,_" she said, for the thousandth time.

And for the thousandth time, Anna replied, "mmh," as she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Whoa! Part 2 already?! Jesus, I thought this would take a whole 'nother week! Turns out it didn't, because at no point during this "let's get the fuck up to date" chapter have I had to introduce anything even remotely resembling a continuation of the war and politics side plot, but fortunately I've got some ideas roaming around in my head and things are beginning to connect.<strong>

**I liked how this chapter turned out, and I'm contemplating sticking to the formula of forcing myself to wait a few days and mull over my chapters before writing them now, especially after having a few moments where I've looked back on 2 or 3 chapters I've done and found myself a little disappointed in how they turned out. Such is the learning process though.**

**So shit, 1 year time lapse since part 1, and we've got some catching up to do. I tried to fit as much of the skinny of what's been happening that year in as I could, as well as I could, without violating the "show don't tell" maxim _too _much, but there are some wordy paragraphs in there so sorry for that.**

**EDIT: disregard the paragraph that used to be here, I just had a really great idea lel  
><strong>

**But that aside, thanks for reading as always and I appreciate your feedback in my own horrible way.**


	17. Chapter 17

When Elsa had been herself, she never would have appreciated the glow of the sunrise leaking through the half-closed curtains. She never would have really noticed just how amazingly soft her bed was. She never would have even been awake for the servant who lit the incredibly unnecessary fire in her room each morning in the fall months, just to lie back and revel in the knowledge that she could stay in bed all day. She hadn't even, during her one opportunity, truly realized what it meant to have Anna beside her.

Elsa buried her face into the red strands of hair under her chin, inhaling the scent of the soaps and scents that Anna had been pampered with at Elsa's behest. No, she concluded, the old Elsa had let the majesty of the world go to waste. The current Elsa barely had to invest any effort for her magic to sing back to her, weaving a sonnet that elucidated each little detail of Anna's body. Elsa laid and listened, a slight smile gracing her lips. Every atomic fizz of muscle movement, every soft whisper of blood through veins, the rolling rush of air flowing into lungs like waves on a beach; all of it was thunderous to Elsa's senses. She went through her morning routine, picking through Anna's body, inspecting each tissue and fiber, marveling at the strength and health the sleeping girl kept herself in, and combing out each imperfection with small eddies of healing magic. Her heart swelled at her intimate knowledge of the beautiful creature huddled against her, as her fingers lightly traced a greedy path along Anna's bare skin, indulging in the familiar bumps and curves she found there.

Anna was hers, and for the thousandth time the realization set her world on fire, immolating her soul and burning every other thought in her head to a crisp. She could hear every pulse and twitch and jitter in the girl's body, feel every burst of motion and energy that made up the unfathomable complexity of the being Anna, and Elsa lost herself in the ecstasy of pondering how such an immaculate construct would ever share itself with her.

The girl in her arms stirred, marking the end of Elsa's musings. After a brief period spent coming to terms with consciousness, Anna accompanied her yawn with a mighty stretch. Elsa reveled in the action, running her hand once again along the girl's elongated torso to the underside of a perfect breast. Anna aimed a dopey glance down to her chest, before smiling and curling up around Elsa's arm.

"Hey," she said sleepily, "are you messing around with my body again?"

"_Nope,_" Elsa said, a blatant lie.

"You could at least do me the courtesy of curing my hangover," Anna croaked, a weak arm rising to rub the sleep from eyes she didn't plan on opening again for another hour.

"_Mmm..._" Elsa took stock of the blood in Anna's body, quickly identifying the toxic agents and making them fizz out into nothingness as she hydrated the girl. Anna spent a few seconds swishing the newly produced influx of saliva in her mouth around before turning her head back to give Elsa a quick peck on the lips and getting out of bed. Elsa gave a whine of displeasure, tugging the girl back against her body.

"Elsa," Anna mumbled, "I can't stay in bed all day, you know that."

"_Fuck you, yes you can,_" Elsa said, voice muffled as she spoke through the red mane of hair her face was buried in again.

Anna rolled her eyes, lifting Elsa's arm while ignoring the older girl's groans of protest and extracting herself from her embrace. "No, I can't lounge around and have fun the whole day like you. _I_ have your kingdom to run."

Elsa sat up in bed, willing away her tiredness with a thought. Just like eating, sleep was also optional for her, but she enjoyed it anyways. Another routine, another of Elsa's old habits she had picked up. "_The kingdom can run itself just fine,_" She said.

"No," Anna retorted over her shoulder as she walked across the room, "it can't. It's barely functioning with me in charge. I've told you before I have no idea what I'm doing."

"_You'll make it work,_" Elsa said with a smile. She crawled to the edge of the bed and sat there with her legs over the side, watching the naked girl stride about the room. "_I believe in you and all that._"

"Elsa, you need to stop dicking around with your days and take some responsibility for this place," Anna said, taking a sip of water from one of the glasses laid out for them. She was no longer hungover, but more water was always welcome. "_My_ dad never taught me how to run a nation."

Elsa shrugged, still smiling as she traced the curves of Anna's body with her eyes. "_Yeah,_" she said vacantly, "_I kind of ignored all my dad's lessons about doing royal duties._" She held up her hands defensively at that, continuing with, "_old Elsa, not me._"

"Because you would have done so much better."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Elsa," Anna said, turning to face the queen and adding stern inflection to her voice, "this is getting serious. Your people are hungry and angry and cold."

Elsa nodded.

"Can you please stop staring at my boobs and pay attention?"

Another nod. Anna rolled her eyes and folder her arms across her chest.

"_Hey...I was watching that..._" Elsa whined.

"The peasants, Elsa."

"_Yeah? What about them?_"

"They're starving."

"_How is that my fault?_"

"It's your fault because the only representative of the crown is an uneducated peasant girl who has dedicated a year to fucking up all the trade the economy relies on and overtaxing the farmers!"

"_So it's your fault then, see? C'mon Anna, why would you ruin my country like that?_"

"This isn't funny, Elsa."

"_How're the family coffers?_" Elsa asked, leaning back now on her arms.

"What? Oh, they're fantastic, full to the brim."

"_Well, I'm pretty sure that's all that's ever mattered, so I think you're doing fine._"

"Elsa, the crown has a lot of money to its name because I _rerouted the economy of Arendelle_ into them! We could be facing a revolt, especially with you constantly stealing peasants off the street for fucking bloodsport. And when the angry mob breaks down the front door, who do you think they'll go for? The uneducated peasant girl, or the queen?"

Elsa frowned at that. "_No half-assed rabble of peasants is going to waste their time and lives trying to storm my castle. Also, you're not uneducated, you can read and write._"

"Barely!"

"_Knowing about verbs and nouns is a step above barely literate. I'm surprised you even found a concubine to teach you that much._"

Anna shrugged, allowing herself to get sidetracked briefly while she picked out a dress from the walk in closet. "Esmerelda used to spend a lot of time hiding out in cathedrals in Dupont during the cold months. She'd hide in the rafters and listen to the clergymen getting taught to read scripture, copied out their lessons by carving the words into wood with a knife. It made for some great stories." Anna emerged from the closet with a dress, fairly conservative, although all dresses were. She gave a sigh of defeat, "you're really gonna just keep letting me do all your work, aren't you?"

Elsa was back to grinning, and this one was a real shiteater. "_Yup, that's my game. Besides, there's a shipment of those new counterpoise trebuchets coming in at the docks and I'm gonna go down and help build one so I can see if it'll launch me all the way back here!_"

Anna rolled her eyes, turning back to her dress. "You're a real fucking loser, you know that? Also, stop buying artillery, that has got to be the most frivolously expensive of your bizarre hobbies, and it's making it difficult to drain the Arendelle fortune back into Arendelle when you're throwing it overseas."

She closed her eyes in frustration when she was given no response. "Are you staring at my butt instead of listening to me again?"

"_Don't be ridiculous, Anna. I would never admit to that._"

"Fuck you."

"_Mmm..._"

Anna gave a yelp of surprise as Elsa's arms wrapped around her torso and lifted her up.

"Elsa! Again? Seriously? I have work to do!" Anna was dropped unceremoniously onto the bed. "I don't have time to be getting constantly ravaged, you need to get that through to your awful, horny wizard brain."

"_You would go there, wouldn't you? I'm going to fuck the word 'wizard' out of your vocabulary, peasant girl._"

Anna crossed her arms, sending a glare up at the cheerful blond standing above her. She was not winning this argument.

"_I'll handle some kingdom affairs for you after, okay?_" Elsa said, not caring much for a response as she settled herself down over the red head.

"That's a lie and you know it."

"_Yeah, it really is._"

* * *

><p>Anna stared down at the stack of parchment on the wide table she sat at in the queen's office. Around her stood a whole mess of dignitaries and representatives, all eyes unwaveringly on her. She sighed.<p>

"Once again, ladies and gentlemen, it seems I have no idea what's going on," Anna said after some silence. The news was received well, as always. Each person in the room had, Anna knew, profiteered greatly off her inexperience in the field of ruling kingdoms. Initially, she had been kept in check with the council of Makin and Ansgar, but only for the week it had taken them to pack their belongings and leave for their respective homes. The news of the king's death had been a wonderfully agitating factor in their lives, and Anna knew Elsa had been too distracted at the time to ponder why they were so intent on fleeing. Or, more importantly, why Ansgar had been so intent on fleeing back to king Amaury in the Southern Isles.

A stout looking lady in a plain gray dress, recently elected protector of the realm, spoke then. "It is as we feared, your grace. The people call for justice. They starve in the streets, their loved ones are whispered away under the cloak of night, and we do nothing to help from, if I may speak plainly, this farce of a court."

Anna nodded. It was harsh, but she could hardly deny it. This needed her full attention. "Any suggestions?" She tried, hoping to derive some genuine advice from the woman. For once.

"Mine is military knowledge, your grace." Never one to disappoint.

A man spoke up from the back of the room. Anna recalled he was notorious for being a general asshole, and made a point to pay extra attention to what he said. "If I may, your grace. Perhaps therein lies the solution."

Another nodded, adding, "Arendelle has sewered its own goods so thoroughly that there is practically no foothold to be gained with local efforts. We have dallied about in our home country for a year now since the queen's coronation, perhaps it is time we finally set our nation's sights abroad."

The lady in gray brought the thought to its conclusion, "if we cannot find stability from our own nation, we request it from another."

"You want me to just up and ask a country to give us goods?" Anna asked, feeling more than a little skeptical.

"Not quite, your grace," the man who had spoken earlier said, "we want you to ask queen Elsa to ask. Hers is the request that cannot be declined. For a year now we have had our great nation backed by an unstoppable horse, why crawl where we may stride with purpose?"

Anna leaned back in her chair. "This all sounds to me a whole lot like you guys want a war to break out." She was met with shrugs. A year of blatant manipulation had put a somewhat more relaxed tone on itself.

"Fortunately for you," Anna continued, "I actually see that working in tandem with something of a pet project of mine. This will take some convincing, Elsa's not usually one to put much effort into anything that doesn't directly relate to having fun."

"If I may, the queen is always one for a scrap, if her evening entertainment is anything to go by. A request of this nature does tend to come with the possible promise of a war breaking out."

"True," said Anna, "but Elsa is more on the constant prowl for a _fair_ fight. Waltzing on over to some nearby country, slaughtering everyone effortlessly, and ransacking their villages is hardly what I would call a challenge for her. Not anymore, at any rate."

"So," said the lady in gray, "we'll just have to find a nation with a powerful sorcerer to keep her majesty occupied."

Anna shook her head. "You've heard, I'm sure, of the glass forest?"

"The ruins of Settes? Yes, everyone has heard."

"I would imagine so. Not everyone, however, has heard that that army had no less than three sorcerers in their midst. Elsa is no longer evenly matched with mere sorcerers. I would be shocked if there were still an even fight the world could throw at her."

The occupants of the room looked at one another, silently conveying thoughts and worries through glances. One of them, a slender woman, said, "but the question is not whether it is possible for the queen to be challenged, the question is whether it is possible for you to convince her to seek a challenge out."

"You raise a good point, but I find myself agitated that the sole responsibility for convincing her of this has suddenly passed to me," Anna said, arms crossed for what felt like the thousandth time that day.

"Well, your grace _does_ have certain...sway with the queen."

Anna let out a huff of air. Another day, another problem with Elsa people expected her to solve in bed.

"Fine. I'll see what I can do. I'm sure you fine people have done the math on which country I'm suppose to aim her at?"

The lady in gray nodded, smiling. "We've given it some thought. It seems Dupont has been doing splendidly for itself under the young king Howard's rule. That boy is truly like his father."

"Yeah yeah, don't rub it in," Anna said. "Do you really think Elsa could be convinced to turn on Howard like that? I think she was fond of him, in her own offensive way. Besides, she couldn't even be bothered to attack Corona after the foul play regarding her family was uncovered, can we expect her to be brought to action so quickly?"

Another shrug. "That's up to you, your grace," the lady in gray said. "Dupont still remains the prime target. Their sorceress, Rapunzel, is a healer of bizarre, but abundant power. A tantalizing target for the queen."

"So it may actually work, then?"

"Don't forget, you're merely trying to convince her to threaten Dupont. They won't deny her, and if they do it will be a lot easier to convince her to follow up."

"Good point. Alright, meeting adjourned," Anna said. The meeting was probably not adjourned, but Anna was eager to get some fresh air, so she adjourned it anyways.

The slender lady smiled, her business obviously not fully attended to. "Alright," she said, "we will get a ship prepare to deliver the queen's message. Your grace, in the meantime, you do what you do best and hopefully we'll have goods pouring into Arendelle before next month is up."

The man beside her gave a chuckle at that. "Don't rush her, Helga, she's already way ahead of us I'm sure."

"All of you eat shit," Anna growled as she yanked open the door to the office. "That's an order," she added, stalking out.

* * *

><p>"I'm having some qualms about this, your majesty," squeaked the soldier, a boy of barely eighteen with a stubbly beard and an adam's apple that protruded prominently from his scrawny neck.<p>

"_It'll be fine,_" Elsa said from her seat in the trebuchet's sling. "_Trust me, queens are made of rubber._"

"Made of wha-"

"_Just release the arm, 'atta boy!_"

"I really don't think I'm supposed to be launching the queen at her own castle," the boy tried again.

"_Look on the bright side kid, the farther you manage to launch me, the harder it will be for me to come back and give _you_ a try on this thing._"

The boy sighed, nodding to the two soldiers under his command who began unraveling the spool of rope from around the machine's axle. As they worked, a man on horseback rode up to their position just north of the docks. Hopping off, he approached the queen, bowing before beginning.

"Her royal highness, the queen consort has requested your presence in your office, your grace," he informed her. "She said it was urgent."

Elsa looked up at him from where she sat, then back at the grand piece of artillery to her front. "_Well shit,_" she said. "_I really wanted to spend more time with this thing._"

The messenger finally took a moment to gauge the situation. "Uh," he managed, "is everything alright here, your grace?"

"_Yeah, why?_"

"I... Are you sure?"

"_I'm fine. What's _your_ problem buddy?_"

The man gave up, simply bowing and returning to his steed.

"_Was it just me or was that guy kind of a fuckin' weirdo?_" Elsa asked the boy to her side. Wisely, he remained silent.

"_Alright, well it looks like I have to get back to the castle in a hurry._" Elsa grinned. What luck.

The soldiers finished preparing the instrument, and the boy stood by the lever that would pop the pin securing the arm.

"This is the last chance you're going to have to find a better class of fun, your grace," he offered helpfully.

"_You know that threat I made earlier doesn't have to be an empty one. I can just as easily aim this thing towards the docks and put you on it._"

The boy let out another sigh and pulled the lever, trying not to panic at the distant, "_ssshhiiiiiiiiiiiiitttt,_" that slowly faded away.

_Holy crap_, Elsa thought as she let herself ragdoll through the hair, _I am definitely trying this again_

* * *

><p>"You want to know a fun fact about healers?" Rapunzel asked the screaming man.<p>

He made no sounds to suggest he was disinterested, so Rapunzel carried on.

"Healers come in two flavors. Generic healers and self healers. You can find sorcerers who heal others, sorcerers who heal themselves, but for some reason you can't find sorcerers who do both. Isn't that weird?"

The man did not have a leg, and as a result it seemed he was not paying attention in the slightest. Rapunzel was alright with that though, most of the friends she met down in her operating chambers never seemed interested in chatting. That never stopped her from giving it the old college try.

"But I don't get to be limited by that, because what I do isn't quite healing magic," she said, lifting his shirt and placing her hands against the bare skin of his writhing torso.

"What I do is I just fuck around with your body, but like...constructively. Does that make sense?" It didn't make sense. The man did not agree that it made sense.

Rapunzel felt around in the man's body, first getting a close look at the nerves screaming agony from the stump to the brain. It gave her a fun sort of pleasure to know she could have quelled that pain. Moving on to the stump itself, she let her magic flow into it, starting to rearrange the flesh so it could be healed.

"This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you. But not physically, physically you're really gonna hate this."

* * *

><p>The office was still covered in parchment and scrolls, but they were no longer legal documents and tedious treaties. These were older, full of magical study and arcane wisdom. Anna hated them, but the ferocity at which she studied them remained unrelenting. Every night she poured over the words, reading, searching for something, anything, that might solve her dilemma.<p>

It was a lot of effort, but if she was reading the documents correctly, it was nothing compared to what was to come.

It didn't matter. It was still nothing compared to what she would do. She would sunder mountains. She would boil oceans. She would fight a thousand armies, cross a thousand countries.

She would split the Earth in half to bring back Elsa.

She was brought out of her musings with a jump as the door opened. "You're late," she told Elsa, standing up and moving around the table to confront the queen before she moved in and saw what Anna was working on. "I called for you like three hours ago."

"_Yeah, I know, I kinda forgot..._" Elsa said guiltily. She was covered in dirt and dust.

"You're a mess, don't tell me you actually followed through with the trebuchet thing."

"_Ah it was a blast. You should try it sometime. Get out and have a little fun! You coop yourself up in here for hours with all your bizarre studying, it can't be healthy._"

"Elsa, we need to talk about the kingdom," Anna said, hoping to move the subject away from her hobby. "Just hear me out. We may have found a way to feed everyone, but it requires some effort on your part."

Elsa looked skeptical. "_This sounds like it's going to be absurdly boring. Please don't tell me it's another 'invent food out of thin air' scheme, because I know you remember how that went._"

Anna did. It had gone pretty well, but only for her. She had run up to Elsa one day, long before she had read any literature on the limitations of creating food with magic, with the excited proposal that they end world hunger by using Elsa's ability to heal to simply create a large, horrible, but ultimately edible blob of meat. After lengthy testing and overwhelming failure, it had been determined that every bit of food Elsa could create would inevitably taste like bitter, non-nutritious shit. As a result, the only thing Elsa could create that was indistinguishable from its real-life counterpart was chocolate, which Anna was entirely alright with.

Anna ignored her nonetheless, continuing, "we want you to send a letter to Dupont asking for food and other trade goods."

"_In return for what?_" Elsa wondered, not catching on.

"Nothing. More specifically, in return for continued peace between our nations."

"_Really Anna? I'm not going to threaten Howard. I _like_ Howard._"

Anna had really hoped Elsa wouldn't say that. She wasn't against the nights, or mornings, she spent with Elsa in her current state. While a large part of their physical relationship revolved heavily around keeping the incredibly powerful sorceress sated and content, Anna still had needs and was hardly loath to have the queen as her company. Still, there were some things she just wasn't ready for.

"But do you _really_ like Howard, Elsa?"

"_He gave me horses. He's adorable._"

"How useful are horses out here, though?"

"_It's the thought that counts._"

"You wouldn't just be saying that because you're too lazy to follow through with a threat, would you?"

"_Don't be ridiculous, fighting is always worth the fun, it's the writing a letter part I have no interest in. Besides, when will I have time to go to war in the next little while if he _does_ decline? We're due to visit Makin next week, at _your_ behest may I remind you. I'm already dishing out favors here._"

Anna sighed inwardly, moving over to Elsa and wrapping her arms around the older girl's torso. "It'll take the messenger a good month to send the message and return with the reply. We'll have loads of time."

Elsa smiled down at Anna, who was now pressed up against her. "_I see what you're doing Anna, you can't just seduce this out of me._"

"We both know damn well that I can."

"_Generally you'd be right, but I _really_ am not in the mood to go threatening close family friends, no matter how good you are in the sack._"

"I'll let you put your finger in my b-"

"_Deal._"

"_Christ_ you are a slut."

Elsa laughed, picking Anna up and letting the girl wrap her limbs around her body. "_C'mon, let's go eat, drink and watch people die._"

* * *

><p><strong>Whoa, that took a while! Unfortunately life's still happening at an alarming rate, but as long as y'all are patient with me, I will not give up the fight with my keyboard to produce shit that doesn't suck.<br>**


	18. Chapter 18

**EDIT: Forgot the god damn italics pass again, fixed now. Sorry to anyone who had to read Elsa's dialogue in a manner that doesn't induce headaches, it was never my intention for it to be that easy**

* * *

><p>"How is my uncle doing?" Howard asked the brunette behind him as he settled into the char in his lounge across from Alice. There was genuine worry in his voice, and it warmed Rapunzel's heart to see him be so caring.<p>

"He's already up and running," Rapunzel said proudly, washing the last flakes of blood from her hands and arms in a bowl on a nearby table that had her back turned to the king and queen. "But I think he's got a stutter now. Y'know, from all the pain, right? I've seen pain do a lot of weird stuff to people."

Alice frowned. "Can you do nothing for the speech impediment?" She asked.

Rapunzel resisted the urge to shoot a glare behind her at the blond's question, instead quickly searching up an answer in her head. Her search proved unfruitful.

At her silence, Howard finally turned his gaze from his beloved queen to look at the young sorceress as well. "Rapunzel? Is there not something you could have done?"

She couldn't lie. Not to him. "He...it seemed kind of sweet to me... The stutter...that is." She admitted. She looked down at the red water her hands were buried in, where they fidgeted awkwardly. She knew she had done something wrong.

"Rapunzel," Howard said softly, "we can't have my uncle unable to communicate. When you are asked to heal someone, we _do_ expect them to be healed to the fullest extent of your abilities."

"Further," Alice said, "we've been hearing disturbing reports of your leaving people in pain while you heal them. We know you can spare them that pain, girl. Why do you hesitate?"

Rapunzel's teeth clenched at being called 'girl'. Especially by that woman, and especially in front of Howard.

"C...can I go?" She asked quietly. "Please?"

"Alice is right," said Howard, paying her request no mind. "You are here at my expense, you enjoy the bounty of my castle. All I ask is you perform your duties the way I ask of you."

Rapunzel nodded.

"No more reports of this...deviant practice you've taken to. Is that understood?"

Another nod.

"Then," Howard let out a breath, "you are forgiven. And dismissed."

Rapunzel muttered a quiet thanks before scurrying from the room, cheeks red with shame.

The king and queen relaxed at the sound of the door closing. Alice lifted a crystal glass of bourbon to her lips, staring into the fireplace.

She allowed the silence to drag on a moment longer before speaking. "That girl upsets me to no end," she said.

The young king pinched the bridge of his nose, eying his own glass. "Locked away in a tower her whole life. I imagine I would be somewhat out of touch with the world myself."

"Knowing of the disease does little to comfort me in the face of the symptoms," Alice said back.

Howard had no response for that. He sat back in his chair, setting his own eyes on the fire and sipping his drink absently.

There's was a comfortable silence, like a balm to sooth the day's worries away. They had sat like this so many times while they had been courting, neither one to talk much. It was in the midst of such quiet moments that their love roared its loudest.

Howard sighed contentedly. In spite of all that had happened the past year–the loss of his father, the massive war that had threatened to consume the continent, the terrifying news of the ice queen he had once called a friend–the endless fears he had built up in his mind were finally beginning to ease themselves from his mind. While the sting of his father's death would never truly fade, the man had had a good life, and Howard was happy to contemplate not the loss of the years the good king could have further brought, but the years they had already spent together. He had been a good man, and a good father, and Howard could settle for that.

The other matters had resolved themselves. The war brewing between Arendelle and the Southern Isles had reached an abrupt halt when the tales of what Amaury's army had found off the coast of Settes had rippled through the continent. What Elsa had become in that land, the whispers said, was not to be opposed. God, demon, monster, Elsa was known now as all manner of things, and it was becoming difficult to separate the truth from the fiction. It had been difficult, but Howard had accepted that all informal ties with her could no longer be maintained. Even if a fraction of the things he had heard of her were true, he could not call a person like her a friend.

On the formal side of thing, at the loss of the threat of war, came the new threat of Elsa. Howard had joined the other nations sending ambassadors pouring into Arendelle to negotiate allegiances, if possible, and get a sense of where the young sorceress may direct her wrath first, if not. The known world had given a collective sigh of relief at the response that had returned; that Arendelle was to stay entirely self interested. It wasn't perfect, they had only the word of her slave girl, newly appointed queen regent of all things, to go on. But over time, that became enough. It was clear that crisis was, at least for the foreseeable future, averted.

Howard took another sip of his drink, a smile forming on his lips as he looked forward to enjoying the next few decades of peace, prosperity and love.

* * *

><p>Anna poured over the endless heaps of scrolls and parchment before her; countless historical documents and papers written on the subject of magical artifacts, items even less common than sorcerers themselves. Magic rarely manifested outside of people, she had discovered, and it was often weak and useless when it did. Any magic was still more than she had, though, and she would need it.<p>

Or, more specifically, she would need the particular trinket she had been hunting for.

And she was close now, she could feel it. The northern Africas, where her and Elsa would be headed soon, were the burial ground of Anna's quarry. All she needed now were the specifics, elusive as they had been the past few weeks.

Anna shifted her weight to a different leg in her excited frustration, wincing at the soreness in her muscles. Elsa, the insufferable bitch, had seen fit to let Anna go about her day without healing the aches and pains of their previous, passion filled night; content to proudly display Anna's discomfort for all the castle to see. The redhead had been thankful for the chair in her office, at least sparing her any bemused looks from her swarm of officials.

_Jokes on her,_ Anna thought bitterly, _I am _definitely_ not putting out tonight_

Anna's internal griping was interrupted by a knock at the study door. Of all the shitty timing.

"Come in," she sighed.

The door opened; a servant carrying sealed letter. "For you, your highness," he said with a bow. "The messenger could not say who it was from."

Anna eyed the letter. Anonymous mail was not usually brought to the attention of royalty. "How did this letter make it through to me?" She asked.

"The messenger," the servant explained, "he was one of Makin's. The seal, you will notice, is not. I thought it may be of interest to you, given the king's ties to the royal family."

Anna nodded, taking the letter. She broke the seal, and quickly scanned the few sparse sentences the parchment had penned on it.

"Does Elsa know of this letter's arrival?" She asked the servant.

"I cannot say what her grace does and does not know, your highness. Only that, as far as anyone is aware, she is still away from the castle on one of her many projects."

Typical. Still, the news was not wholly unwelcome. This was not a letter Anna wanted Elsa to know of, and fortunately it seemed she wouldn't. While Elsa could have easily read the letter and left the seal looking undisturbed, the older girl had shown as much a lack of interest in Anna's hobbies as she did in her own duties. Frustrating, at times, but certainly worth the freedom from restriction it granted. Anna had free reign to plot against Elsa all she pleased.

"Thank you," Anna said to the servant. "You may go."

He bowed once again before exiting the room.

Anna turned stiffly back to the table-cursing Elsa's libido for the thousandth time-and looked down at the mess of documents. She reread the letter.

Anna had said few words to the sorcerer Ansgar in his time at the castle. Most of their discussion had been during the final week of his stay, and was dedicated solely to management of the nation. He had a sharp mind for magic, and had Anna known then of the amulet she was pursuing she would have called that mind to the task of aiding her search. She had already wasted far too many months on painstakingly obtaining, from typically unwilling collectors, the immense amount of knowledge of arcane artifacts that she had in front of her. Then there was the time it took for her reading ability to catch up to the downright _ridiculous_ rhetoric that marred the tone of each scroll. Every night spent drawing closer to the deadline she had set for the journey to visit Makin, every night realizing she may not complete her research on time, she had furiously contemplated just how much even a week of tapping into Ansgar's mind could have revealed to her.

_I bet he's already memorized every one of these fucking scrolls_

But now the letter offered new hope, because now Ansgar could still help her.

Because now Ansgar was in Almoravid.

Anna grinned, and began packing the scrolls and parchments away.

It seemed she would be taking her research with her to Africa.

* * *

><p>The dungeon air was cold and dry against Elsa's skin. She didn't mind, of course, though she wondered if it were really necessary to keep the few criminals Arendelle's castle did bother holding, in lieu of the town jail, in such poor condition. They were only criminals, after all.<p>

She opened the door past the interrogation chamber, stepping by the two guards standing to attention and walking into the dungeon proper. Across from her was the singular cell, barring off the majority of the room with a mesh of thick, unyielding iron set directly into the hard rock foundations of the castle.

A single man with brown hair that cascaded down sideburns into a suspiciously well shaven chin sat on the one rotting, wooden chair in the cell. It had been placed there once by a bored guard, and the mad scuffle over the thing had entertained the men for weeks.

"_Hi Hans,_" Elsa said pleasantly. "_You all having fun down here?_" She asked, motioning nonchalantly to the pile of corpses neatly stacked in the corner of the room.

Hans smiled back at her. "Yeah," he said, "except for them. They weren't very nice."

"_I can't imagine they smell very good,_" Elsa said in consolation, while enjoying the bubble of clean air she maintained around her head at all times. "_But hey, no, that's pretty neat. Pretty grim. You're my kinda fucked up Hans, and I mean that as a compliment._"

Hans studied her a moment. "You're different," he concluded.

"_Wow, you really don't get much news down here do you?_"

The man shrugged. "It's been a whole year, nobody's told me much of anything."

"_That's a bummer. Well, the long and short of it is that I am different. Better, even,_" Elsa said. "_I gotta admit though, you yourself are kind of puzzling me. They say every person has a bit of magic in them, and I can tell you, they do. I can see it, like a little light shining in every person. Cheerful even. But you...there's nothing. No light. I've never seen that before._"

Hans' smiled widened, seriously threatening to dip into grin territory, which did not work with his face in the slightest. "Maybe that's why I am who I am," he said. "From one deranged person with no light to another with altogether too much, you're my kind of fucked up too, Elsa."

Elsa beamed. Then her body split apart into snow, a blizzard flurrying through the bars of the cell and collecting together on the other side, reforming into Elsa's shape. Snow-stepping, Anna had called it, in reference to the shadow-walking enjoyed by the shadow-casters of legend.

Hans did not seem surprised in the slightest.

"_Alright Hans, here's the deal,_" Elsa said, summoning a chair of ice facing Hans that she sat on. "_I've got a trip to Africa happening in a few weeks, and I need someone around who can manage a castle. Fortunately for me, I just happened to recall a particularly sharp fellow we've swept under the carpet who can rule like a prince while still being every bit the asshole I already am._"

Elsa leaned forward then, eyes flashing black. "_How would you like a job, Hans?_"

* * *

><p>The queen was in her usual position in her throne, leg slung over the arm rest and chin resting against her hand, as she awaited that night's entertainment. She had a flagon of ale that she was guzzling happily, enjoying the warmth and noise of the throne room and the feeling of her own full belly at her desire to have dinner prior to the fight. It had turned out to be a winning combination; she would probably stick with it.<p>

To her left, Anna nursed a glass of wine and stared absently in front of her, looking oddly cheerful.

"_What's got you grinning?_" Elsa wondered.

"Well," Anna said, her eyes fixed forward, "for starters, my thighs aren't on fire anymore."

Elsa chuckled at the memory. She had finally taken pity on Anna during dinner and eased her sore muscles. "_Yeah, that was good..._"

"That was the opposite of funny, Elsa."

"_Well I know _you _think so, you gave me a mouthful for it, and not the good kind either._"

"I spent the _whole day_ limping down the halls listening to servants snicker at me under their breaths!" Anna tried to keep the laugh out of her voice, but the prospect of meeting with Ansgar was still cheering her spirits, and she found it difficult to remain angry.

"_That's awful, have you tried using magic to solve your problems?_"

"You aren't getting any tonight," Anna said, turning to stick her tongue out at the queen.

"_I always get some from you. Now, more importantly, you still haven't told me what really got you in such a sunny mood?_" Elsa had chosen a terrible time to suddenly grow an interest in Anna's personal life.

"I dunno," Anna dodged, "just having a good day I guess. In spite of _you_, obviously."

Elsa grinned, turning back to the hall. "_Whatever it is, I hope it stays._"

"It'll definitely stay," Anna promised. Her mood seemed to be persisting through the inevitability of the coming fight, an event she so usually found gruesome. Tonight, though, loaded with the fever of excitement, Anna could almost swear she was anticipating it.

Anna drained her wine, motioning her hovering servant. At their movement, Anna took a glance to the side and saw her glass was now being filled by a pretty young woman who looked remarkably familiar.

"Nice," she said, turning to Elsa and nodding her head in the direction of the wine girl.

"_Thanks,_" Elsa said. "_Turns out someone had a twin all this time,_" Elsa motioned to her own wine girl.

Anna snorted. "Twins...unbelievable."

"_I know, I'm so good to you._"

A cheer rose from the hall as two guards emerged from a service door, each with a young woman in tow. They were led to the center of the room.

"That's new," Anna muttered. A symptom of the era, chivalry was far from dead, and as a result the guards took to only finding men to drag into the queen's arena.

"_Shit, the surrounding villages must be getting low on men,_" Elsa said. "Looks like tonight is a ladies night for everyone."

"Maybe that's a sign you should slow it down with this?" Anna asked.

"_I was just thinking that, but seriously look at those two, they're total hotties. Tell me you don't want to see them scuffle around._"

Anna opened her mouth to retort before catching an eyeful. "Shit," she admitted, "I might have to agree with you on that one."

Elsa smiled, turning her head back to the room at the sound of a loud cheer, drowning out the sobs and pleas of the two young women prostrated before Elsa, as the soldiers riled themselves up. Elsa tilted her head back, happy to add her own voice to the adrenaline and excitement in the air.

_Fuck it_, Anna thought, and joined right in.

* * *

><p>Anna gave no indication that she noticed Elsa joining her on their balcony as she stared out to the harbor, watching the sea glisten in the moonlight. She let out a shaky breath, trying not to shiver at the uncharacteristic chill in the late autumn breeze that stirred waves of moonlight through the grassy plain to the south and gently rustled the fabric of her dress.<p>

"_Don't worry,_" Elsa said, "_you won't get it the first time. It's not an easy mindset to shift into._"

Anna didn't look at her. "I don't want there to be a second time," she said quietly. "I don't know why I ever wanted there to be a first."

"_Don't worry then,_" Elsa said, placing her hands on Anna's shoulder and rubbing soft circles with her thumbs. "_There doesn't have to be a second time, you're perfectly free to go back to sitting around somberly. You also don't have to attend at all._"

Anna let out a sigh. "I think," she said, uncertain of where to begin, "I think I've figured out why you're so interested in the fights."

Elsa chuckled somberly. "_Anna, I'm sure I've told you a thousand times, that's just the way-_"

"No," even though it was a whisper, Elsa heard it loud as day and let it interrupt her.

"Don't tell me that it's because that's how Elsa truly was," Anna said.

"_Then what else could it be? I am who Elsa truly is. Past all the defenses and the fear and the web of lies we tell ourselves and each other, creatures like me hide. I'm more Elsa than anyone else I've ever pretended to be._"

There was a pause, during which Elsa took her hands from the girl, moving beside her to gaze out at the water as well. Anna worried her lip for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

"I've been reading," she started, eyes unfalteringly locked on some distant point in the dark blue horizon, "about sorcerers. The ones who've died. There are so many tales about each of them, so many different adventures and struggles. And all of their deaths are these gruesome, long winded episodes. They say sorcerers are hard to kill, but it's always talking about their magic. They never talk about how they do die, kicking and screaming and fighting to their last breaths. There are sorcerers who have dragged their broken bodies across deserts, who have fought off impossible odds where normal men would have given up."

Elsa nodded. "_Sorcerers are sturdy, it's part of having magic,_" she said.

Anna shook her head. "There's more to it than that, I'm sure of it. There's something there, in these people, some urge to live and thrive that I think goes beyond all that, goes beyond anything possible. I think magic does something to people, makes them more than just strong. It makes them fierce. I saw that in Elsa, the day she rescued me from Settes. The way she fought and screamed and bled and kept going... The way she killed...it was as though it was the most important thing in the world, as though she had been born for the sole purpose of doing anything it took to stay in this world; even if that meant killing every person and burning every forest and boiling every sea and tearing the world itself asunder, Elsa would stay alive."

"_She was hardly a fighter,_" Elsa said, a cold edge lacing her tone. "_She faltered and failed constantly. She was a sobbing coward, begging and pleading at every bit of pain._"

"And every time Elsa faltered, you were there to save her," the young girl's voice was still soft, still quiet.

Anna finally turned to Elsa, their eyes meeting at last. "You were always the last resort, the insurance that Elsa would carry on through every moment of weakness."

Elsa broke her gaze first, staring back out from the balcony, clenching her jaw. "_I'm not a last resort,_" she said, and where Anna had expected anger she heard only melancholy. "_I'm a person. I'm Elsa._"

Anna turned her eyes away from the sliver of Elsa's expressionless face, joining the queen once again in staring out to the edge of the sea. "You're not Elsa, you're just the fragment of her that would claw its way out of hell to stay alive. You're the part of her that wants to live as much as possible, to survive and thrive and feast and fight and fuck and never have to worry another day of its life that the world may tear itself to pieces anyways.

"And I think that's why you're so interested in watching people fight. You're fascinated with that idea, that desperation people have so close to the end of their lives. You want to see other people struggle like you would, tear their way through pain and flesh and stone to stay alive, to be the victor, to dominate."

"You would spend your whole life searching for that feeling again, even though you, with all your power, could never have it for yourself. You would spend an eternity chasing that liminal moment, that event horizon where it begins to dawn on us just who we'll need to turn into for the rest of our lives in order for there to _be_ a rest of our lives. But it wouldn't fix what's missing in you, Elsa, even if you found it. It wouldn't make you whole. It wouldn't do anything but leave you the same small shard of a person you've always been."

Anna faced Elsa one last time. "And that," she said, "is why I will _never_ love you back."

Anna went inside, and left Elsa to her thoughts.

And for once Anna found the girl's pitch black eyes no longer seemed so threatening. Now they were just a sad reminder, a desolate window to the broken soul within.


	19. Chapter 19

** guest: morbidity is the name of the game son. Loved ones just discover you're a violent psychopath by watching you murder someone? Slowly turning into an amoral monster? Is "dubious consent" your fucking theme song? That's what it's all _about_.**

**For every action, an equal and opposite reaction; for every ounce of fluff, the secret desire to bathe in the waters of hedonism.**

* * *

><p><strong>Two weeks later<strong>

Elsa strode away from the craters marring the litany of her failure. This time, she promised herself. This time she would do it.

A good distance away, where the smooth stretch of grass between the harbor and Arendelle was guaranteed to be free of the scarring she'd given it, Elsa prepared herself. She cleared her mind, stretching and clenching her hands at her sides. She slid a leg back. Her eyes were closed, and she regulated her breathing, gaining a zen like sense of the distribution of her weight.

A pulse of magic sent her rocketing upwards. Days of practice had honed the balance of her ascent, and Elsa maintained perfect vertical posture as she flew further and further away from the ground, a slow spin keeping her aligned. She reveled in the joy of the air blasting by her face and the familiar drop of her stomach as the Earth fell away from her. Her eyes closed against the sensation, relishing the rush, even after the thousandth time.

All too soon, the wet stratus slapped against her face, and Elsa felt the extent of her burst of power wane. She was unsure of what lay beyond, of what mysteries the sky held in their position above a world with so much left to discover, and so as always, Elsa left the monstrosity of the great beyond to another day, choosing to curb her powers and let herself fall. She opened her eyes as she tilted backwards, the great white constructs of floating water around her tilting in their impossible majesty as her vision rotated and her body slowed and began to feel the drag of gravity. Elsa threw her arms out, a smile stretching her perfect lips, knowing that succeed or fail, there could never be any moment as resplendent as the rich blue of the midday sky against the pure white of the clouds as she slowed to a stop and began to fall.

Elsa concentrated all her strength into that moment, into making her magic press evenly against every inch of her body. She focused hard, feeling herself begin to resist the all-consuming urge to touch back down.

Her shoulder sagged, her leg jerked upwards. Suddenly Elsa was spinning and the world was a blur, and she was pulsing unfocused bursts of magic into her limbs, trying to slow herself down. Her legs jerked to the side, her chin flew backwards, her torso bucked up, folding her in half. She let out a scream of frustration, countless among the others, and didn't even care as it was whipped away by the hundred mile-per-hour wind tearing at her rock solid skin. She gave up eventually, enjoying the small amount of stabilization she'd managed to glean, and instead tasked herself to enjoying the ride down, watching the land of Arendelle rush towards her with incredible speed, hardening herself while the buffets of wind changed tone as she approached the ground.

Elsa left another crater in the soft dirt of the plains, having long since gotten used to the claustrophobic feeling of half a tonne of dirt weighing over her. A throwback to her time as a weakling, the several hundred pound weight of earth closing in around her head still made her fear for her life, in spite of that fact that even a full thousand miles of solid rock would be laughably easy to melt through. Now, all Elsa felt was exasperation as her body erupted from the ground once more.

She landed beside the hole she had just made, propping herself up on all fours and shivering the larger chunks of dirt off her body. Dismissing the anger she felt at another failure, she pushed herself up and stalked away from the filled-in dent she had made in the ground, off to make a new one. She was bloody well determined to get this right.

And fuck her if she wasn't _so close_. Elsa could practically taste victory on the horizon. She slid her leg back once more, centering her gravity between her two feet, hands spread to her sides with palms aiming downwards. She gathered her magic around her, feeling it pulse and waver through the air, feeling the dust start to shift in line with the vortex of power circling her. She pushed off once again, blasting through the crisp air, reaching her zenith in a matter of seconds.

And in a matter of seconds after that, she was falling uncontrollably towards the Earth once again.

It wasn't fair. Elsa could mend bones, cure disease, heal hangovers, send surges of feeling through the impossibly complex nervous structures of human beings. There was intricacy and finesse there that human flight should never have been able to measure up to, and yet it was _so difficult_.

Ansgar had been wrong. The difficulty with flying had nothing to do with the true specificity of magic. Elsa could unlock a door with a thought now, could send a rod of ice through a peephole with nothing but her mind. No, she'd found, the true opponent was her presumption of the nature of flying.

Elsa had never bothered considering the impossible dynamics of mending flesh, and as a result there were no barriers in her mind preventing her from performing the feat, but flight... Elsa had spent her whole life grounded by her knowledge of the impossibility of flight.

And now she was literally grounded by it, by the constraints she unconsciously forced upon the magic strained through her psyche.

The telltale roar filled her ears as she burst through the surface of the dirt layer in the field, burying herself in the ground head first, ramrod straight. She was so close it burned. Ignoring the rush of dirt in her mouth, Elsa dropped her jaw to let out a scream that even several feet of dirt couldn't bury. Her anger boiled around her, and the matter surrounding her body several meters in every direction superheated into liquid hot magma that she felt burn her clothes away in an instant.

Elsa floated about at the bottom of the deep, glowing lake she'd created, letting the red hot goop surrounding her sooth her tense muscles. She spread her limbs, stretching out easily in spite of the high resistance of the dense liquid she bathed in. She lifted her eyelids, letting the thousand degree lava press directly against her black eyes. The overwhelming light had been passing right through the translucent slips of flesh anyways, keeping her eyes closed hadn't been worth the energy. It occurred to her that she may have created an extremely visible scar along the scenic path from Arendelle's harbor to her capital city.

Elsa let the worry slip away, along with all her others. After some amount of time, maybe minutes or hours, she let herself nod off to sleep.

* * *

><p>"This is a disaster," Hans said, lowering the parchment his nose had been buried in for the better part of two weeks.<p>

"Tell me about it," Anna mumbled from her seat by the fireplace, not bothering to lift her head out of her arms. She felt lethargic today.

"Alright," Hans said, "now that I'm mainly caught up, my first concern is the taxation you have on imports and land owners. What business does it have being so high? Especially during a famine."

Anna shrugged. "Not really my idea," she said. "All the officials I met with said it's not healthy for the economy to lower taxes in a panic."

Hans nodded. "That makes sense," he said, "you're taking over half of the goods from the farmlands and selling them to third party companies who are getting saddled with tax."

"And that makes sense?" Anna wondered, surprised she could even keep up at all.

"Yes, because for some reason almost every member of your board owns the companies in the sectors they represent, so if you'll look here," Hans placed a number of ledgers from his wad of documents onto the table in front of Anna, "you'll see that this taxation is primarily being put to good use as their salaries, effectively embezzling every last copper of their companies to feed their self-inflated salaries; another thing I'm shocked to find out you missed. This was all done literally under your nose."

"Already told you, I don't know the rules of this game," Anna said. "I just fill in for her royal majesty, queen bitch of Arendelle."

_Who is nowhere to be found_ Anna fumed internally. They should have been on the trip to Almoravid by that morning, but instead Elsa had run off to engage in her usual routine of fucking around, leaving Anna to wake up to a pounding headache and an empty bed.

So while she waited for the queen to return, she busied herself with letting the newly freed Hans, who was far more sapient on the subject of running a kingdom than she, berate her stupidity.

"Alright," Hans was saying, "well ideally we would have your corrupt officials all drawn and quartered, but unfortunately that would somehow be even _more_ destructive to Arendelle's situation. At least, for the time being."

"So we're basically just going to have to fix it around them?" Anna asked.

Hans smiled. "Who's _we_? _You_ are going on a vacation. I have your mess to clean up all by myself."

"Remind me again why Elsa trusts you not to turn this place into a complete shithole? I know _I_ don't trust you in the slightest, your reputation speaks volumes from what I hear."

"Realistically, you _can't_ trust me in the slightest. Fortunately for you though, it is quite literally impossible for me to be so malicious with this kingdom that I can overshadow both the queen's bottomless cruelty and your boundless incompetence. There is, and I'm being quite honest with you, no way for me to make the situation in Arendelle any worse, no matter how hard I try."

"That's hardly reassuring."

"It's really the best you've got."

"The best I've got is shit. You're shit."

"Okay Anna."

Anna huffed. She had been getting increasingly unnerved by the serene attitude Hans asserted at all times. There was something lost and distant about the way his eyes could gaze into nothingness no matter where they were aimed. He reminded Anna of her time in the horde, before being rescued by Makin. Hans was like the glassy eyed women to whom one captor was no different from another.

_Broken_

The door opening interrupted her thoughts. At the absence of a knock, she knew it was Elsa even before she turned around.

Anna was pulled into a deep kiss before she was given the chance to start shouting at the girl for disappearing, though she immediately jumped back with a yelp of surprise.

"_Jesus_ Elsa, you're freezing, what the fuck?! Is that...a dress made of ice? Why would you ever _do_ that?!"

Elsa grinned sheepishly. "_I accidentally burned my clothes off,_" she admitted.

Finally looking up from the, admittedly gorgeous, ice dress, Anna realized Elsa's face, and all of her skin really, was covered in black smears of soot. "What the fuck did you _do_?"

"_I went swimming in a pool of lava. Some of it started to cool off on me when I got out and it was a bitch getting all the ash off so I just figured I'd leave it for later,_" Elsa said, smiling. She turned to Hans, saying, "_hi by the way! I trust things are going well?_"

"They're going so well, I think we'll be able to make fantastic progress," Hans said.

"_That's great! See Anna? I told you he was the guy for the job. Wasn't I right?_"

"Probably not," Hans said.

"_Aah, you're totally the guy for the job,_" Elsa said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"From the looks of things," Hans said, "you'll probably still have to send that message to Dupont. I can get things headed in the right track here, but I'm not a miracle worker."

"Don't worry, I'm sure Elsa would be happy to getting around to penning that letter _any time now_," Anna growled, sending a sharp glance Elsa's way. Elsa responded with a rude gesture.

Hans chuckled, "if it's any consolation, your grace, I hear this Rapunzel that Howard's got stashed away in his castle is an especially powerful specimen. If they decline, you may even have a chance to test her mettle yourself."

That brightened Elsa up. "_You think so?_" She asked excitedly. "_You think she'll be a match for me?_"

Hans shrugged at that. "Only one way to find out," he said.

Elsa grinned at the possibility. "_Alright,_" she said, "_might as well get this over with. Where do you guys keep ink around here?_"

Anna led her to the desk. "Hey," she said as the queen settled down and began writing on an empty piece of parchment, "while you're on a roll with this whole 'not committing the fourth sin' thing, don't forget we have a trip to Africa you've spent the _whole day_ avoiding."

Elsa looked up from her work. "_That? Didn't I tell you? I wanted to travel by night,_" she said.

"What? By night? Who starts a voyage at night?" Anna asked, incredulous.

"_It's more romantic that way, we can look at the stars together,_" Elsa said, letting a dreamy inflection seep into her voice.

"How is it possible that you, one of the most educated people for hundreds of miles around, can simultaneously be literally the dumbest bitch?"

"_Oh don't fret Anna, it's not like we need to trifle with crew trying to pick their way through the dark. I have magic, we have a whole wealth of ways to speed on down towards Makin._"

Elsa leaned back from the letter to Howard, reading it over and smiling. "_Hans, double check this for me,_" she said, waving the parchment around to dry the ink before passing it to the man.

Hans' eyes scanned the document quickly. "Damn," he said, turning back to the queen, "you write a solid extortion letter. Up top, blondie." Hans offered an open palm that Elsa happily slapped with her own, completing history's first high five in the shittiest way possible.

Anna buried her face in her hands. "Elsa, can we _please_ go?"

"_Yes we can,_" Elsa said, hopping up from her chair with a smile. The meeting had put her in a good mood, and she gave Anna's rear a loving smack as she passed the girl on the way to the door, whistling a happy tune. "_C'mon,_" she called back to Anna, "_I want to wash this crap off my face before we leave. Is all the packing done?_"

Anna sighed, hurrying after the blond. "Yes," she said, "it's been done for days."

"_Good. I'll be in the bath a few minutes, take the time to slip into something tight, but easy to take off._"

"Fine, but you're not ripping it off along the way or I'll have nothing to wear that isn't packed."

"_Mmh, good point..._"

"Elsa I'm serious, no tearing my clothing this time."

"_But think about it Anna, _nothing_ to wear. Doesn't that sound like the perfect trip to you? It sounds like the perfect trip to me._"

Their voices trailed off into the distance, leaving Hans alone in the office, reclined once again in one of the larger armchairs. He reveled in the silence, enjoying the feeling of peace and quiet, interrupted only by the homely sounds from the fireplace.

After a while he stood, making his way over to a nearby cabinet. If his inklings about kings and their booze was right...

And so they were, a host of corked bottles lay in wait alongside an ornate corkscrew. Nothing spoke of downright juvenile levels of excess like an ornate corkscrew.

He popped open the bottle, filling a small glass with brandy. A respectable drink, and it burned smoothly down his throat. Agdar had had good taste, Hans decided.

And the old man's daughter was fun. Hans so rarely had the opportunity to have fun these days, and he was finding himself attached to the queen's magnetic personality. He hoped the two of them might have a chance to be friends.

He sat back, fingers absently twisting the black ring on his left hand. After some thought, he took it off, letting the familiar warmth flood him.

Hans took another sip of his drink, then set to work with a quill and parchment. This place, he decided, was going to be in tip top shape by the time the queen returned.

* * *

><p>"<em>Are you sure you're going to be alright seeing Makin again?<em>" Elsa asked as their carriage, a rare frivolity that Elsa agreed to indulge in, and entourage of servants tending to their packed belongs, made its way through the streets of the harbor town. The journey had been relatively uneventful, save the brief detour they'd had to make around a surprisingly large lake of slowly cooling magma.

"What do you mean?" Anna asked through the small scented cloth she held up to her nose. She hadn't realized just how unaccustomed to the general stench of humanity she'd become within the castle walls. While the putrid reek of humans wallowing in their own waste created a noxious cloud announcing any settlement of significant size for miles around, the castle had still been oddly well insulated from the toxic air.

Elsa, far too powerful to have not come up with a solution to that problem, smiled slightly at the redhead's discomfort, smugly encased in her own bubble of purified air. In response to the question she said, "_well, you were his slave for quite some time. I'm sure that sort of thing lends itself to unfriendly feelings._"

Anna shrugged, the action shifting her tight black dress in oh so many tantalizing ways. It was a dress that truly brought out the best in Anna, and Elsa was trying very hard not to look at the two best sides of Anna on proud display in front of her.

"I was _your_ slave for quite some time too, don't forget," Anna said.

Elsa frowned at that. "_Yeah, but I resolved that by letting you touch my boobs,_" she said. "_I don't think I want you resolving your differences with Makin like that._"

"Hold up, _you_ resolved things between us?"

"_Besides, you know he'll have moved on to other slave girls,_" Elsa said, ignoring Anna. "_I just want to know if you're alright being back in that environment given your history as a slave girl._"

"Whoa now, what about you?" Anna said, reaching across the carriage to poke Elsa in the stomach. "Your history with slave girls is it's own matter."

Elsa rolled her eyes, crossing over to sit next to Anna and gathering the younger girl up in her arms. "_Come on Anna, you know you're the only slave girl for me,_" she said as she gently rubbed the tip of her nose against Anna's before leaning into a kiss.

Anna gently leaned away, breaking the kiss. "Yeah, I know," she said. "I'm fine about Makin. I won't begrudge him for how the world is. Besides, he was...good to me. Y'know, for what I was..."

Elsa nodded, letting the silence fall comfortably over them for the remainder of the ride.

When they were finally at the docks and out of the carriage, the two girls ignored the gathered crowd of onlookers, choosing instead to stride to the end of a long pier and stared out at the sea, tinged orange by the setting sun. The smell of salt wafted in from the waves, blowing back the stench of the town.

"So, uuh...how exactly were you planning on making this happen?" Anna asked the queen, cloth still held to her nose just in case.

"_Didn't really think that far,_" Elsa admitted, before raising her hands towards the water. "_I've got a few ideas though,_" she said.

Water began to bubble and churn in a patch of water near where they stood, growing in intensity. Anna stepped back as a long shaft of ice emerged from the water a short distance away from them, quickly accompanied by two more. The shafts of ice quickly branched off into sheets and cords of ice, a perfect sculpture of sails and rigging. Finally, with a mighty burst of water that Elsa mercifully directed away from Anna the hull of the ship rose from the briny depths. The ship, still pouring the water collected from its ascension, settled down in the waves to the sounds of cheers from the gathered citizens. Elsa looked around at them, all beaming and clapping their hands and shouting excitedly at their leader's display of might, in spite of who they knew Elsa to be.

Not for the first time, Elsa marveled at how compliant the lower classes were.

She turned back to the ship, admiring her handiwork. The sun refracted fantastically through it, scattering orange beams all across the slanted build of the town. "What do you think?" She asked Anna, pride evident in her voice.

Anna studied it, brow furrowed. "Why's it got sails?" She asked.

"_Huh?_"

"Sails. Why's it got solid ice sails, how do they work?"

"_Oh, uh...I don't know, I just kind of put them there. I mean the whole motif is ice, right? Makes sense they'd be there._"

"But solid ice? Didn't you make a dress out of ice like three hours ago? Why didn't you just use that fabric to make the sails?"

"_Alright, Jesus, I didn't think about it but fine, whatever, cloth sails, fuck._" The sails did indeed turn to icy cloth, fluttering gently in the wind.

"Well, alright, but I mean altogether I'm not sure why there's any rigging on that thing anyways," Anna said then. "I mean, can't you propel it with your mind? Why would there be sails, that's just going to slow it down."

Elsa glared at Anna angrily. The masts and all their glorious rigging liquified, splashing over the deck in a thunder of water. "_Are you fucking happy now?_" She growled out.

Anna finally looked over at the blond. "Don't be ridiculous Elsa, why would I agree to spend a several week voyage aboard a ship made of ice?"

Elsa spun on her heel, not trusting herself to speak, and stalked off back up the pier. Behind her, the rest of the ship melted, forming a wave that caused considerable disturbance among the smaller craft.

Anna hid a smug grin beneath her cloth, following behind the girl.

"Oh come on Elsa," she said after the frustrated sorceress.

"_Don't talk to me,_" Elsa responded, eyes reverting to black pits.

"Seriously, did you expect that to work? It's a ship made of ice, I can't live on ice for half a month! What were you gonna do, spend every second focused on keeping me at the perfect temperature?"

"_I said fuck off._"

"Maybe if you'd listened to me and got us a ship like I'd said in the first place this would be resolved and we wouldn't be sitting here with no way to get to Almoravid."

Elsa ignored the redhead, storming over to the nearest gentleman, who suddenly seemed to find himself a whole lot of work to do.

"_Hey! You!_" Elsa barked. "_What's the fastest ship in the harbor?_"

The man stiffened. "Son of a bitch," he hissed under his breath.

* * *

><p>The ship coursed through the water, sending ocean spray flying out in a gigantic arc to its sides. More than once, Elsa had cheered herself up by veering off course to broadside smaller craft with several gallons of the stuff. Regardless of the girl's antics, they were making good progress, far better than Anna had expected.<p>

As the sun finished slipping beneath the horizon, Anna felt her stomach rumble. She looked up from her position by the quarterdeck rail, spotting Elsa sulking far up in the rigging. She called up to the girl, pointing to her stomach when Elsa looked down. Anna couldn't see the blond roll her eyes, but she knew perfectly well she had.

Elsa stood up on the topgallant she'd been perched on for the past few hours, walking out to the side to stare down at the ocean rushing by. She probably could have just levitated a fish out of the water and into her hands, but she needed to cool of so she let herself fall off the yard.

Anna watched as Elsa zipped around under the water, a white streak keeping up with the boat. It was good to see her finally enjoying herself again, probably appreciating that, at least in water, she could fly.

Anna took a seat on the stairs leading down from quarterdeck, waiting for Elsa to finish having her fun. A sheet of ice cupping the ship's waterline was propelling it along, not that the servants who huddled below deck could have done much sailing on their own. Normally, the speed at which they were going at would have created enough wind to whip anyone who dared venture out on deck off the back of the ship, but Elsa had taken pity on the passengers, after deriving a quick laugh from sending everyone bowling into one another at the first burst of speed, and made a bubble of still air for them around the craft.

After a short wait, Elsa leapt up from the water, grabbing onto the side of the rail to haul herself up, proudly holding a large, dead fish in her mouth. Anna smiled, standing up and descending the last of the stairs as Elsa spat her prize onto the deck.

"My hero," she said, pulling Elsa in for a quick kiss. "You taste like fish."

Elsa beamed, hopping over the railing and onto the deck and drying the water on her body. "_I beat up a whale!_"

"I am so proud of you," Anna said, leaning down to pick the fish up. "What kind of fish is this?" She wondered aloud.

"_I haven't the faintest clue,_" Elsa said, gently taking the fish from Anna's hand and running a finger from its anal fin to its head, splitting the flesh open. She gave the head a quick twist and pulled, throwing the guts overboard, before scraping out some residual gunk and pieces. Then, pressing the remaining muscle between her hands, she heated it up until it was sizzling merrily.

"Cool," Anna said, and meant it. "I didn't know Elsa ever figured out how to gut a fish."

Elsa laughed. "_Elsa couldn't have figured out gutting a fish if her life depended on it. For all the fuss people made over how powerful she was, she was probably the only sorceress who never had to learn to fend for herself._" Elsa bobbed the fish in her hand, "_now c'mon, before it gets cold. I'm pretty sure there are some eating utensils below deck._"

Anna complied, quickly returning and inhaling her food. It was pretty scarce, as far as her recent dinners had gone, but out at sea there wasn't much opportunity for banquets. Afterward, she joined Elsa back at the rail, gazing out over the starlit sky, reflected serenely in the glassy stillness of the distant water. Anna suspected Elsa was dampening the waves to get the water to keep still this far out at sea.

"The sea looks nice," she said.

"_Thanks,_" Elsa replied, her voice sounding fatigued. Anna felt a twinge of remorse for teasing her earlier, knowing Elsa had already been having a bad day beforehand, and especially because the ice ship really had been beautiful.

She wrapped an arm around the older girl's waist, nuzzling her head against Elsa's shoulder. Elsa smiled, and Anna could feel her tensed muscles start to relax against her.

"Hey you," Anna purred, "not to sound super needy or anything, but I went through all of the trouble to get into this little black dress, and..." She trailed off, turning towards Elsa and pressing her chest to the girl's shoulders.

Elsa looked her over for a moment, before widening her smile and saying, "_alright, fine, I forgive you._"

Anna grinned, and leaned in to start planting a trail of kisses up Elsa's neck, eliciting a small gasp from the young queen. "I knew you would," Anna mumbled against her cool skin.

"_I'm still tearing your dress off,_" Elsa said, slinging Anna over her shoulder and walking towards their chambers.

* * *

><p><strong>I feel like I've hyperextended the whole "Elsa carrying Anna around" symbolism shit, but it's just so fucking cute I can't stop working it in. Caveman Elsa may very well be Best Elsa.<strong>

**More importantly, it's come to my attention that we're already starting to get into part 2 and I haven't worked in any actual, magic inclusive, evenly matched sorcerer fights yet. Unfortunately, we're probably not gonna get to that until part 3. What a gyp, eh?**

**This chapter is dedicated to Googling "anatomy of a ship" to find out what all the bits that aren't the poop deck are called.**

**EDIT: HOOOOLY SHIT THAT SLIP, SORRY, THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT SISTERS, MY BAD**


	20. Chapter 20

**Ten Days Later**

Anna looked down at the hands encircling her waist. Elsa's soft breath whispered across the back of her head, making the hairs on her neck stand up. Around their bed, the ship tilted and swayed softly, marking their arrival at the harbor they'd sighted earlier.

The remainder of the voyage had gone smoothly. The servants had eventually swallowed their fear and began moving about on deck. More importantly, the chef had accompanied them out of hiding, happily working away preparing meals that weren't the fish Anna had been subjected to for several days.

Anna shuffled herself around and further up the bed, enjoying the rare opportunity of waking up before Elsa. She gathered the slender woman in her arms, pulling her closer and resting her chin atop Elsa's blond locks. She let the sensation of Elsa's breath, now on her neck, sooth her.

It had been a short few days, and in spite of the uncharacteristically distant attitude Elsa had been showing her for the past few weeks, Anna had gotten to spend a lot of time with the girl. It hadn't been quite the same of course, not since their moonlit discussion all that time ago, but Anna hadn't been expecting just how little had changed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Anna supposed, she had always known that Elsa was aware of how she felt. She knew she was an imposter, that Anna would always compare her to the real Elsa, the one she'd known.

But it had always been the elephant in the room; the thing they had never brought up through some wretched silent agreement, and Anna knew she had overstepped some boundary by vocalizing it.

Elsa groaned into Anna's neck as she woke up. "Th'fuck?" The older girl lifted her head up, confused at their new position.

Anna smiled up at her. "I wanted to be big spoon for once," she explained.

Elsa scooped Anna up, dragging her down the bed a few inches and resting her chin back over Anna's head. "No," she said, ignoring Anna's disappointed huff and trying to get back to sleep.

"Elsa, we're here. You _know_ we're here, you stopped the ship at the harbor," Anna whined, trying in vain to get out of the girl's arms and out of bed. "Come on, we have to get up."

"_We don't _have _to_," she grumbled, "_we can just stay in here forever._"

Tempting, but Anna persisted nonetheless until the two were dressed and making their way across the deck of the ship. They stepped through the hustle and bustle of servants unloading baggage to the various dock hands who had helped them through the docking process, happily walking down the gangplank to the docks.

"Holy shit it's hot here," was the first observation Anna made. "Can you cool the air around us down or something?"

Elsa bit her lip, hesitating while she stared Anna over.

The redhead folded her arms. "I chose this outfit specifically because it doesn't cling to me when I'm sweaty."

"_Anna,_" came the reply, "_why do you hate me?_"

"Fuck off and cool the air down."

Elsa complied with a scowl, and they set off down the docks to where they would be met by a welcoming party.

"_The servants are staying with us at Makin's castle once they've finished unloading our stuff and catch up,_" Elsa said, by way of explanation to Anna's worried glance over her shoulder.

"Oh, that reminds me," Anna piped up, "can we fire Gerda?"

"_Fire Gerda? I don't actually know if that's even possible, why?_"

"What do you mean 'why'? She's _so_ damn weird!"

"_She is pretty weird,_" Elsa admitted, "_but what has she done worth firing over?_"

"She gave me a jar."

"_A jar?_"

"It had spiders in it."

"_What the fuck Gerda..._"

"She told me to, and I'm quoting her here, 'get a head start on this shit before it's too late'."

"_God dammit, not this again._"

"Why does she even work at the castle? What does she _do_?"

"_Not sure, she took care of my father when he was a boy, and his father before him. Maybe she's like a cleaner-slash-caretaker?_"

"What? How old is she?"

"_I don't actually know. I asked dad once and he told me that she's been in the family for generations. I'm pretty sure she's an heirloom by this point._"

"It may be time to dishonor a family tradition then."

They were greeted at the edge of the harbor town by an entourage of mounted men, each with a spare camel held by the reigns. Beyond them, distant specks on the horizon marked travelers and traders on their ways to and from the docks. The rolling dunes shimmered under the broiling heat of the sun, and not for the first time Anna was glad to have Elsa around.

They climbed onto two camels, their handlers leading them off into the desert while the rest remained and waited for the servants to bring their baggage. In Arendelle the convenience of a mount for a servant would have been unheard of, in the Sahara it was the difference between life and death. Predictably, their two escorts kept their camels close to the queen once they caught on to the bubble of cool air she kept around her and Anna. The girls made good time towards Makin's palace, which was mercifully close to its own harbor town. The convenience of a large source of water, even salt water, had made an easy target of the coast for many settlements and towns, and Almoravid's thin profile was populated densely along its western shores as a result.

"_So,_" Elsa said, piping up after a half hour spent in silence, "_tell me again, why is it you want to visit Makin?_"

Anna stared at her dumbfounded. "You took us all the way out here without the faintest clue why."

Elsa's response was a shrug and a warm smile. "_Yeah, kinda forgot after the first time you told me. Figured I'd just take your word for it, y'know?_"

"Vacation, mostly," Anna lied, "but also just to see the old place again. I grew up here, remember?"

"_Still seems like a weird place to take a vacation,_" Elsa said, more to herself than Anna, before turning back towards the distant dot on the horizon that marked Makin's palace. She was getting curious, something Anna was definitely not happy about. Her research, her project, could not succeed if it were brought to Elsa's attention.

She set her gaze out at the vast expanse of desert around them. The Pendant of Anthia lay somewhere nearby, she knew it. Somewhere in this desert, buried in the sand or in a cave set in the infrequent cliff faces, she would find it.

* * *

><p>"I've gotta be honest," Ansgar said, "I really don't like the desert."<p>

"Neither do I," Makin admitted. "The sand, the heat...it does wear on."

Ansgar sighed, letting himself be fed another grape by a nearby concubine. Theirs was the quintessential north African royalty scene, with all manner of slaves and concubines attending to their every whim. One of them even had a fan they were using to keep Makin cool. If Ansgar could concede anything to this blasted continent, it was that at least they knew how to pamper a guest.

The room they were in, whatever Makin had mentioned its purpose was, was large and sloped along a wide set of stairs that led up to their comfortable seats. If Ansgar hadn't known better, he might have suspected it was the throne room, the way anyone who entered would be forced into the spotlight beneath Makin's mighty presence. But he did know better, especially better than to think there was a room in the ornate stone palace that would put Makin at a disadvantage to visitors in any sense.

The giant of a man turned his head to him then. "I'll tell you one thing though," Makin said through a smile, "it's worth the half naked women everywhere you look."

Ansgar let a laugh belt out of him. "True," he said. "the view in this country of yours is spectacular all year 'round. If only I could find my cock in the lake of sand gathered in my trousers."

Makin laughed, fixing his gaze back to the front of the room and changing the subject. "So, the girls shouldn't be much longer getting here."

"And about time," Ansgar replied. "I would have expected Elsa to have found a faster means of travel."

"Still the same stupid girl after all this time it seems. I'm far more interested in how the slave girl has progressed since we left her."

"Myself as well." Ansgar mused at the memories of a foray north of the Southern Isles where he had intended to recapture some scripture for his studies. Arriving at the enthusiast's home with a written command of seizure from the king, he had been pleasantly surprised to find that Anna had beaten him to the punch. A quick spot of asking around later and he had caught on to her plan. "She's a fair bit sharper than I'd pegged her for."

"And hardened now too, if you've relayed her designs to me correctly. I think Elsa's starting to rub off on her."

"I think Elsa has done a lot more than that on her."

"Hah! Elsa was right, you are a creepy old wizard," Makin snorted.

"Easy now old man, don't go saying anything you might regret. Though, you do make a fair point. Crossing deserts, scaling mountains, starting wars. This slave girl has put a lot on her plate, and I'm excited to see how she manages."

"I missed this," Makin admitted. "Countless years of work down the drain at Agdar's death, you'd think we'd have grown sick of scheming, but the past year has been the most boring I've encountered in ages."

"Well, at least _you_'ve had your slave girls to groom. I've had to make do with Amaury's cussing and blundering about the political mindfield for thirteen godawful months."

"The slave girls are fun, you've got me there. Anna was such a success, I haven't even had the patience to work on anything different."

Ansgar widened his eyes somewhat at that. "So you've just been busying yourself making more little Anna's?"

"I have," Makin said proudly. "I'd actually planned on letting the girls try one out. A little diplomacy never hurts, after all."

"Whoa well hey, if you're just passing out slave girls like candy-"

"No."

"Pandering old fuck," Ansgar mumbled under his breath.

"Creepy old wizard," Makin shot back.

"Please stop saying that, it doesn't suit you at all."

"You're right, it suits you, that would be the point."

They were interrupted by a slave, a young woman draped sensually in red silks. She prostrated herself before Makin, a sight Ansgar could get used to, and spoke her announcement to the floor.

"The queen and consort of Arendelle have arrived, your excellency. They await your presence in the main hall."

Ansgar grunted, reluctantly sitting up from his chair. "Damn, I'd been hoping to fit in another hour out of lying here. I am not at all in the mood to pour over ancient scrolls today, be it with or without cute slave girls."

"Then don't," Makin suggested, beginning to stand up himself.

"You make a good point."

"I suspect our guests will be tired out. Tonight we will have for ourselves."

"That means booze, doesn't it?"

Makin grinned. "All that and more."

* * *

><p>Makin made good on his promise, and roars of laughter carried through torchlit halls as music from the great dining lounge played to the sounds of feasting and dancing. The guests gorged themselves on goat and dates and all manner of other foods, drinking themselves silly all the while.<p>

By the time the moon was high in the sky, Anna and Elsa were relaxing together on a wide, satin couch and drooling contentedly over a slew of nearby dancers.

"They're just..." Anna mumbled.

"_Half naked..._" Elsa finished. "_What a time to be alive._"

"Can we get these for back home instead of people fighting?"

"_You know? I'd like that._"

Anna took a deep gulp of her drink, enjoying the warm sensation cascading over her. Her belly was full, her mind was foggy, her queen was close, and the night was alight with sensual possibility.

Out the corner of her eye, she could see Makin and Ansgar still engrossed in the conversation the girl's had excused themselves from some time ago.

Well, she figured, if they weren't going to pay attention...

Anna shifted her weight up, leaning over to plant a kiss on Elsa's cheek. The blond tore her gaze away from the dancers, finding herself eye to eye with Anna's emerald eyes, deep from lust. With a happy smirk, Elsa brought the redhead in for a deeper kiss, purring at the younger girl's aggressiveness as Anna explored her mouth with her tongue. Elsa slid a hand up Anna's torso, cupping a breast and dragging a moan out of Anna as she began kneading it.

Anna was entirely unsure what had gotten into her. Something about the desert and the heat and those incredibly distracting dancers and those delicious looking bellies exposed for her eyes to consume. And did she ever want to consume.

They were eventually brought to by Ansgar announcing, more like slurring, his retirement to bed. He had his arm around the waist of one of the dancers, and he led her off into the night, leaving one contended Makin, one restless Elsa, and one breathless Anna, amidst a crowd of entertainers.

"Enjoying yourselves I see," He called over to them, standing up to join his voice at the table near their seat, catching a passing concubine in his arm and bringing her with him. The girls smiled drunkenly back at his arrival.

"_I'm gonna be honest Makin, if this is how you guys have fun,_" Elsa motioned to the dancers and the concubine seated in Makin's lap, "_I think I might prolong my visit._"

Makin laughed at that, turning to face them himself. "They are something, aren't they?"

"_Dancers, concubines, slave girls?_" Elsa wondered. "W_omen seem to be a booming trade in these parts._"

"Women are a commodity everywhere my dear queen, surely you would agree. For what else is all the power of titles and might and magic if not for them?"

Elsa wasn't sure she could argue with that. At least not while she was as drunk as she was. "_Well, I certainly can't thank you enough for little Anna here,_" she said, sliding a palm up the back of the extraordinarily drunk redhead with her face buried in Elsa's neck and her body all but in the her lap.

"She certainly seems to be doing well for herself. I've always loved a happy ending," Makin slurred, an arm clutched possessively around his own woman.

The two enjoyed a moment of relaxed silence, enjoying the slow music and dancing and company.

"_Yeah,_" Elsa sighed, "_women are pretty great._" She looked down at Anna, who clutched at her dress with unspoken need as she nuzzled against Elsa's skin. At least for this night, it seemed, Anna was as much in need of Elsa's attentions as Elsa was in need of hers. Elsa's heart swelled at the thought. She so loved providing for Anna.

Were she not capable of near total control over her body, she would have completely ruined her undergarments by this point.

As it was, Elsa kept her self comported, for the most part. Only her quickened breath and darkening eyes betrayed her arousal. Once they were in private, she was fairly intent on seeing if Anna could scream loud enough to keep the whole palace awake.

Finally, Anna leaned back from the queen, a line of drool from the mark on Elsa's neck leading back to her flushed face. She looked around the lounge, at its mass of cushions and furniture and tables, as suited for numerous small clusters of guests as it was for gigantic, focused affairs. She looked to the dancers behind her, to the woman whose lap she was in, who smiled up at her as she swayed slightly from the alcohol.

"You've never been in this part of my palace," Makin observed.

"No," Anna admitted, gazing about with wonder. "It was always the concubines' chambers and my room. It's kind of weird now, being back here as a guest."

"I admit, I am most impressed at how far you've come," Makin smiled. "There are few people who have what it takes to bring themselves to your position."

Anna considered her position, which was astride Elsa's right thigh. "I think I may have had a few advantages there," she pointed out.

"True," Makin admitted. "I would like to take considerable credit for getting your leg in the door, something I think every one of us is thankful for."

At that, it was Elsa's turn to nuzzle against Anna. "_You did do a good job with her,_" Elsa told him, "_I don't know what it is but she's just so damn _cute."

"Was," Anna corrected, "I'm a lot less cuddly now."

"_I still think you're cute._"

"Ah," Makin this time, "that reminds me. Before we all retire to our chambers, why don't you join me for a stroll about the palace for a moment?"

* * *

><p>In her inebriated state, it had taken Anna no less than five minutes to piece together where they were going. For ten years of her life she had wandered about this part of the palace.<p>

"Concubines?" She asked.

"Slaves," Makin corrected. "They haven't retired to their chambers yet, and I thought the two of you might be interested. At the very least, it may answer the questions you've had."

He pushed open the two doors that had once been the entry to Anna's world. Where everything she had ever learned and known had been stored away.

It hadn't changed much. Still the same soft floor, laden with a mass of cushions, the same curtains hanging about to allow for privacy anywhere in the room. Not that privacy had been often needed, or afforded.

And of course, the same cluster of barely dressed concubines moving a respectable distance away from the doors before prostrating themselves before their king.

"_Whoa,_" Elsa breathed, "_okay that's...that's a lot of asses that just went up in the air at once, I think I'm gonna need a minute._"

Anna snorted, jabbing an elbow at Elsa. "I lived with it for ten years, you should try being behind them while they do this."

Elsa's eyes widened. "_Oh my God you're right, I should _definitely_ try that._"

With a word, Makin put the concubines at ease, before motioning to a few of them. At once, as the rest of the women returned to chatting and grooming one another, three young girls, Anna's age at most, were hurriedly dragged before Makin. Two had brown hair, the darker skinned one had black. All three stared at the floor while they approached, the behavior bringing Anna back to her time here. Had it only been barely over a year? It felt like a thousand since she had left this place. Even then, there were those familiar names and faces coming back to her as the room full of concubines met her gaze. There was Esmeralda, eyes brimming with curiosity looking over her regal attire.

All at once, it was as though the room became of Elsa's presence. The chatter that had so quickly started back up at their entry hushed itself immediately, all eyes fixed on the sorceress.

Elsa looked down upon the sea of wide eyes and fear, and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards. Whatever this feeling was, she liked it.

Makin observed the young queen. "It's intoxicating isn't it? Power is one thing, but to see others behold that power...that is a feeling that has consumed more men than have escaped it unscathed."

He motioned to his slaves, who stood trembling at the focus of the room eyes again cast downwards after identifying the queen. "You asked earlier of what the goal of my sculpting is Elsa, see for yourself."

"_I see scared girls,_" Elsa replied. "_Don't tell me your secret ingredient is obedience?_"

"If obedience was the secret to the hearts of men with power, they would all have concubines. This isn't about obedience for the sake of obedience. Take a look at my concubines."

"_Way ahead of you on that one,_" Elsa drooled.

Makin ignored her, "Concubines are obedient because they know that is their place. They are obedient because, when all is said and done, they are confident in the knowledge that there is safety through obedience."

The king turned then to his slave girls. The one in front, the brunette, gave a quick glance up to him before shifting her eyes downwards again. "But the ultimate expression of power is not about obedience, it is about innocence and fear. It is not enough to control, one must corrupt."

He noticed Elsa, eyes black, but still so obviously locked on the shaking brunette at the front. The queen's arms were twitching, and her mouth was open in a slow pant. Even Anna was having trouble sparing the slave a predatory glance or two.

"You feel it, do you not?" Makin grinned. "That desire to corrupt. To be the one to introduce her to the world of sin, see what shivers and squeals await in her untarnished mind and body. To revel in the full extent of what it means to be able to do _anything_ one desires to her."

Elsa shifted her glance down suddenly, gritting her teeth and trying to shut out the near sobs of the girls at Makin's words.

"It is nothing to be ashamed of," he went on. "It's a natural consequence of power and those who have it. You ask what makes my slaves so valuable? It is the hearts of people like you. I merely create them, you do the grunt work in your own minds."

Anna's head was spinning from the alcohol and lust. She looked to the brunette who was drawing in shuddering breaths. She was struck by a pang of familiarity.

_Is that really who Makin turned me into?_

She looked to the blond at her side, mirroring her own, current emotions.

_Is this who I've become?_

And suddenly she didn't want to be here anymore under the cold stares of her old friends and in the presence of those slave girls. Anna let out an unsteady breath, wrapping herself around Elsa and pressing her face into the girl's shoulder.

"Can we go?"She whispered.

Elsa nodded, looking to the king. "_I think we'll take our leave now, Makin. Have some drinks sent to our rooms if you would._"

He smiled, "of course," and watched them walk away.

_This_ he thought _is far too much fun._

* * *

><p>Elsa all but threw her redhead onto the large, ornate bed in their chambers. All at once, she was on top of Anna, hands roaming the girl's torso, head buried in her neck nibbling a trail across and down to her chest. She slid her hands up to cup Anna's breasts through her dress, drinking in the moans the girl made.<p>

"Holy shit," Anna gasped. She was far too aroused, far too wet, to be reasonable. She was shuddering and gasping beneath Elsa, hands searching aimlessly around the blond's back as her own arched up. She reached between Elsa's legs, savoring the hiss the girl let out as she rubbed her folds through the fabric of her clothing.

Anna rolled Elsa over, as surprised at the blond's compliance as she was at her own desire to be on top for once. The queen's dark eyes were narrowed into slits, and her breath was now a quick, helpless panting. She looked as close to the edge of control as it was possible to be, and now Anna wanted to see how far she could push that. She kept sliding her fingers up and down between Elsa's legs, neither of them capable of the concentration required to even do away with their clothes.

"_Anna..._" Elsa groaned, hands already tearing the bedsheets with her iron grip. Her chest thrust upwards, her back tilting away from the bed in an effort to push herself further against Anna. It was taking everything she had to not...to not what? Elsa wasn't even sure she was capable of doing much at the moment, a first for her.

With a snarl, Elsa bolted upright, sending a startled Anna falling backwards as Elsa stared the door down as though she could shatter it with hatred alone.

"_Dammit,_" she growled.

A moment later, a light, timid knock sounded on the door, accompanied by a small voice. "H-hello?"

Anna lay where she had fallen against the bed, struggling to get her breath back under control. "_Fuck!_" She hissed in frustration. "Who the fuck would knock on our door at this hour?"

Elsa's jaw clenched, still staring at the door and contemplating simply ignoring it and treating the intruder instead to Anna's moans. Her musings were foiled by Anna, who got up off the bed on unsteady legs and made her way to the door. Elsa followed close behind, not liking where this was going.

Anna tore the door open, not bothering to mask the snarl on her face. "_What?_"

The brunette slave girl jumped, sending wine from the glasses in the silver tray she had brought spilling out onto the floor and her forearms.

_Right, the drinks..._

"Oh god!" She gasped, her voice still barely a whisper. "I-I'm s-sorry! Oh god I'm s-so sorry..." Her panicked breath quickened, and Anna felt another flood of heat at the eyes regarding her, wide with fear.

The queen and consort stared her down, eyes roaming her young body, wrapped in light silks that made an enticing display of her midriff and legs.

"_Makin you bastard..._" Elsa muttered. At his name, the brunette's eyes snapped back to focus.

"Oh! I...I was t-told to b..." She took a deep breath, hoping to steady her nerves. "Bring you your...w-wine." Nope, wasn't helping.

She hung at the next part, hoping her courage wouldn't fail her. "A-and to...s-s-serve you in any other w-way I could, he said... I-I'm not sure what he...?" Her eyes shifted between the two of them, desperate, pleading for an explanation as to why she was here.

Anna closed her eyes, letting out a slow breath, trying to keep herself under control. "Holy shit Makin," she whispered, "this is so wrong."

Elsa gave a quick nod to the girl. "_Put the wine in our room,_" she commanded, stepping aside to let her pass.

She hurried on through, finding space on some piece of furniture Anna couldn't identify, and setting the tray down. Anna and Elsa glanced at one another before stepping further inside towards the slave girl, who had returned to her jittery routine.

There was a brief silence as the two appraised the animate creature.

Elsa took in a breath, opening her mouth to dismiss the slave girl. "_Sooo..._" she trailed off.

Anna agreed, this was starting to get out of hand, the girl needed to leave and fast. "Serve us further, huh?" She inquired, stepping to the left of the slave girl and letting her eyes run along her profile.

The slave nodded, her jumpy disposition lending extra shakes to the action. "I...that's what Makin said to me, uh, your graces. I don't kn-know what he meant b-by it."

Of course she wouldn't, Elsa figured. She would be just like Anna had been, wanting an explanation for each new sensation Elsa had shown her, each new height Elsa had brought her. Maybe even worse, if Makin had gotten better at his hobby.

Anna let out a hum of acknowledgment, glancing over brown locks to lock eyes with the pits in Elsa's face. Their expressions conveyed their mutual understanding. It was time for this stranger to leave.

"She's really pretty," Anna slurred, bringing her body close to their prey and relishing the shudder she'd elicited. She had no clue what kind of shudder it was.

The girl tried to ignore the voice at her ear, looking up and straight ahead, maintaining what semblance of professionalism she could. Her eyes locked immediately onto the tilted head of the queen, dark eyes unreadable but still blatantly scanning her curves.

For the first time it occurred to her that she had no idea what kind of trouble she was in.

Elsa turned then, moving to the door to excuse the girl from their chambers.

She slowly closed it, engaging the lock, ignoring the strangled cry of despair from behind her and the soothing "sssshhh" Anna replied with. Elsa stalked back to the duo, noting the girl hadn't bothered turning to face the redhead appreciating her smooth, muscular back and the curve of her rear.

The slave girl looked up from the ground again to see the queen striding back towards her, grim purpose on her face. She backed up subconsciously, wincing with regret as two hands caught the small of her back, halting her retreat. The hands remained where they were, splaying out and roaming to her sides, down to her hips. She grit her teeth. Maybe this wasn't happening. Maybe it was a dream and she would wake up in a cold sweat to the cooing and light teasing of the kind women back in the concubine's chambers. She wanted to run away to them, to somewhere other than this. But she couldn't.

It wasn't her place.

It wasn't even her place to beg.

She did anyways.

"P...please...I-I don't underst-stand..."

_Oh god_ Anna thought as her hands trailed up the girl's fit belly, _oh god this is so wrong_

Elsa reached forward, cupping the brunette's chin in her hand, forcing her to look as she brought her big, black eyes close enough to fill the young girl's vision.

Anna felt abdominals clench beneath her hands at the sob she was sure had started out as a terrified scream at Elsa's face. She pulled the slave girl in closer, the familiar soap scent in her hair reminding her of the home she had left so long ago.

"_Your name,_" Elsa demanded.

"Jane," it was the one thing she hadn't stumbled over.

"_Jane,_" Elsa echoed, before thinking of how best to tell her to get out. She directed Jane's chin to the side, to better lock eyes with Anna over the brunette's shoulders.

The two girls stared at each other for a long time, each trying to come to the right decision through the alcohol and lust and the shaking of the warm body between them.

_This is disgusting_ Anna's mind screamed.

_You're disgusting_

"_I'm game,_" Elsa managed to say, "_are you?_"

_No_

Anna opened her mouth to disagree.

"_Yes,_" she panted.

_Monster_

Elsa pressed her mouth against Jane's, relishing the warmth she found there, snaking her tongue against the slave's soft, plush lips.

She leaned back at the resistance. "_Open your mouth when I do that,_" she instructed, her voice husky, deep with desire.

"O-okay," Jane whispered.

"_Good girl,_" Elsa pressed her lips back into Jane's, sliding her tongue into the girl's mouth.

Totally submissive. Elsa almost lost herself on the spot, and then again as Jane gasped audibly into her mouth at the sensation of Anna's hands sliding up to her breasts from behind. Elsa moved her own hands down around Jane, grasping her rear, feeling it through the thin silk that was draped about her. Elsa heard the slave girl's heart rate spike even higher than it had been before.

Eventually, however, enough had to be enough. Elsa's hands went higher, sliding up smooth back muscle, finding the knot in the silk ribbon fastened around Jane's chest. She gave it a quick tug, devouring the slave girl's panicked sob as the material fell away until it was held in place solely by Anna's hands.

Anna let her greedy clutch loosen at the feeling of Elsa's moving up against her skin and slave's fabric untangling, bringing her palms once again into contact with Jane's breasts, directly this time. Her skin bore the smooth texture of a pampered life of rich oils and soaps, and Anna moaned into her neck at the feeling of those soft mounds yielding to her touch.

Elsa slowly broke the kiss, letting her tongue trail out of Jane's mouth and slowly up her face to the bridge of her nose before retracting it.

"_I think it's time we put that mouth to better use,_" she purred.

* * *

><p>Jane's legs jerked violently as Anna's index finger completed another full circle around her sopping entrance, the young girl briefly halting her ministrations to gasp.<p>

"_F-fuck Anna!_" Elsa growled over her shoulder from her position astride the girl's face. "_Stop doing that, let-_ha_...fuck...let her concentrate._"

Anna grinned ear to ear, already sated and content. "Nope, you did it to me, you can see what it feels like."

Jane tried to focus on moving her tongue around the queen's small nub of pleasure, her fingers sliding in and out of Elsa the way Elsa had shown her with Anna. She was better at it now, could feel the way Elsa's damp sex quivered above her and leaked drops of salty pleasure down Jane's chin. Her face was, by this point, completely coated in the girls' essence. She tried not to think about it, tried not to think about anything, not wanting to slip back into her nervous trembling. She especially tried to ignore that damnable redhead's slow tracing between her legs, distracting her from her task at hand. Why was she so _sensitive_ there?

And why did it feel so _good_?

Elsa sucked in an abrupt lungful of air, and Jane felt the same squeezing around her fingers as she had from when Anna had been writhing about on her back. The blond doubled over, shuddering through a silent scream and placing her hands on the bedsheets above Jane's head. In spite of her revulsion at the particular position, at least this time there would be no hands around the back of her head to push her closer during those final moments the girls seemed to enjoy so much.

Then she felt the teasing finger between her legs push inside her. Deep.

It was the first thing that had ever been there, and Jane knew instantly that she wanted more the alien, but not unwelcome, jolt of ecstasy through her system. Her legs twitched, her stomach clenched, and her mouth opened in a cry of surprised lust, halting her tongue's work.

Elsa found her voice in a drawn out scream of frustration. Of all the awful times for her stimulation to halt.

"_Anna you bitch!"_

Anna giggled as Elsa wrapped her hands around the head between her thighs, grinding herself desperately against Jane. Her legs squeezed hungrily around the girl's head.

So much for that.

Jane closed her eyes under the assault, feeling her face pressed against Elsa's hot center as it overflowed with more and more of her essence that she obediently gulped down, no longer minding the taste. She kept her fingers pressed hard against the rough flesh inside Elsa, letting the queen have her fill of her, use her as Anna had before.

Anna leaned back from the duo to watch her queen pleasure herself. That had been far too entertaining. Doubly so with how Jane's body had begun betraying her more and more as the night wore on. She had practically lifted her hips off the bed when Anna withdrew from her.

After a brief eternity, Elsa started coming back down, slowly allowing herself to topple off of the slave girl's face, curling up and enjoying the last few shivers in running through her body. Jane had picked up quickly; Elsa's climax had been intense, even in spite of Anna.

Jane sucked in the lungful of air she had been denied during the throes of Elsa's passion.

Anna happily took over, slowly dragging herself alongside the brunette, cradling her soaked head with a hand that brought her in for a kiss. Jane complied, letting Anna's tongue roam about within her. The redhead hummed at the flavors of herself and Elsa within the slave girl's hot, willing mouth. She drank up Jane's moan as she slid another finger into the younger girl, bringing it out and breaking their kiss to press the curious digit to Jane's lips.

A new low, but Jane did as was expected of her, swallowing quickly to banish the taste of her own sex. Anna giggled at that and leaned down to slowly drag a long, wet tongue across Jane's face, savoring the coating of their juices that had flowed onto her. Jane squeezed her eyes shut as the offending muscle slid over one, and then up to her forehead where Anna brought it back to her mouth, closing her eyes and shuddering.

Jane sighed, hoping maybe the girls were satisfied now and would let her leave. Then she could figure out the potent tingling Anna had brought to life between her legs. The mess of mysterious folds and entrances that had perplexed her all her life was suddenly begging to be explored.

Anna's eyes reopened, staring down at Jane with a mischievous twinkle. "Slave girl did good, Elsa."

Elsa hummed her agreement, following with, "_wanna see how loud we can make her scream?_"

And of course, back came the trembling. Jane squeezed her eyes shut again, trying to control it. She had to be good. No matter what, she had to be good for them.

She obeyed Elsa's commands to turn towards her and lay back. Anna and Elsa studied her for a moment, sharing a knowing glance between them. Jane kept her eyes trained down, on her own body. While she had made headway on being naked in front of another human being, or beings as the case was, Jane was in no way capable of keeping herself collected at the sight of those horrible black eyes the queen wore in her lust. She hated those eyes. How could the red haired girl be so comfortable, so loving around this demon?

Then again, Jane reasoned, what evidence did she have to suggest the consort wasn't a demon herself?

"_Holy shit,_" Elsa breathed, eyes hungrily scanning lower on the girl's naked form to her dripping entrance. "_You were really working on her, huh?_" She asked Anna.

Anna nodded, finally dropping to her stomach between Jane's legs. "Yeah, she looked a little...tense." At that, Anna inserted a finger into Jane for the second time that night, appreciating the moan the girl had to fight to stifle before it tore itself from her throat. At her second finger, Jane had to clap a hand over her mouth.

When Elsa began to delicately thumb her sensitive button, nothing could stifle her cry of pleasure.

What was happening to her, Jane wondered, crying out again as Anna's fingers began moving in and out of her. Every touch, every bit of delectable pressure went against everything she knew was right, and she wanted more. Her control over her body was lessening, and her mind was slowly being replaced by a thick fog of desire she didn't understand, too lost to contemplate it. Her hips were jerking involuntarily, desperately trying to increase that sinful friction. Was this the feeling she had been giving the queen and consort earlier? The realization felt dirty, but she cast it aside.

A hand, she didn't even know whose it was, grabbed her chest. Looking to her left she saw Anna's eyes staring at her as the girl settled herself down beside Jane, fingers still slowly working her into a frenzy. Anna kissed her, and this time she kissed back, not caring what she was doing anymore. Not caring what was happening, where she was, who she was.

Until Anna's fingers hooked inside her and a screaming Jane got to experience first hand why the girls had been so intent on her doing just that to them.

Something was coming, and it was coming fast. A peak she was desperate to reach, some heightened level of pleasure that startled her with its sheer imminence. She broke the kiss.

"_Please!_ S-something's happening! Please tell me what's happening to me!" She begged, confusion and fear and desperation edging into her voice.

"Might want to keep your head back," Anna advised, fingers beginning to work faster and faster inside the tight warmth of the squirming brunette. "Spares you whiplash, trust me on this one."

Then Anna leaned in for a kiss, and Elsa smirked though there was no one to see it, and Jane's head slammed back against the bed and she screamed and the world ended for her.

Anna felt the girl constrict around her fingers the second Elsa had poured her magic directly into the bundle of nerves between Jane's legs. Her body locked, almost the picture of Anna's reaction to Elsa's mind shatteringly potent magic, if it weren't for the endless scream.

"Wow," Anna said at the slick snugness surrounding her digits, "just how much magic are you hitting her with?"

Elsa gave her a sheepish grin, raising her voice to compete with the slave girl's desperate wailing. "_About two or three times as much as I generally give you. I usually don't risk much more than that in case the pleasure breaks your mind or something._"

"That's thoughtful of you," Anna purred.

"_You think Jane here is at risk of collapsing a lung?_" Elsa wondered as the girl in question ran out of breath and resorted to sucking in occasional, awkward gulps of air between cries. Just for fun, Elsa pinched her clitoris that much harder.

"Good point, maybe we should let her down now? I'm sure there's such a thing as too much pleasure"

"_Yeah, you're right. Wouldn't want her getting brain damage or something..._"

Fifteen minutes later, long after Jane's throat had gone raw and she had quieted down, Elsa finally relented, letting only small eddies of her magic flow into the girl to make sure she didn't simply pass out from sensory overload. Some part of her wanted to make sure the brunette got to experience all the pleasure she was due.

Anna slowly extracted her fingers from Jane as the girl's walls began to relax. Studying the slippery fluid coating her, Anna realized she didn't really feel like tasting their new lover. It felt like that was a privilege for only Elsa.

"Not bad for a first time," Anna said conversationally, attempting to wipe her hand on the bed behind her but ending up using the slave's face instead.

Whatever.

"_Aww, look at her,_" Elsa crooned, eyes fixed on Jane's limp body and vacant expression. "_I think we fucked the life out of her._"

"You'd better not have actually turned her into a vegetable. Makin's not gonna be impressed if he finds out the first thing we did as his guests was break one of his valuables."

"_Not worth much if she's not a virgin,_" Elsa pointed out. She picked up the slave girl from under her shoulders, dragging her away from the large damp patch she'd made on the bed to a spot in the middle of their pillows. "_Besides, she's fine, just a little dopey. You get like this all the time._"

She quickly added, "_after sex, that is,_" at Anna's glare. "_Look, my point is she'll be up and at em by tomorrow._"

They settled in, a quickly fading Jane sandwiched between them. Anna and Elsa both put protective arms around her, snuggling against her smooth, naked skin.

Anna regarded the girl for a long while.

"This was so wrong," she said finally.

"_You say that like you didn't enjoy it,_" Elsa countered.

Anna sighed at that, knowing she couldn't deny it. What had just happened to her? How could she have done this? And taken such pleasure in it no less. Was it the drink? The girl herself? Elsa's pressuring?

Had Makin been right?

"Elsa," she asked, "is this what it feels like to be you?"

There was another long pause. Anna realized Elsa's eyes were open, staring into her own.

Then the blond looked down, nestling her forehead into Jane's hair. "_No, the part that feels like being me is the part of you that knows that we're going to do this every night during our stay, and all the guilt in the world couldn't ruin it for us. Goodnight Anna._"

Anna didn't push it.

She wrapped her arm tighter around Jane, a sudden surge of protectiveness shooting through her. Anna marvelled at the irony of how badly she suddenly desired for no harm to come to the girl.

She closed her eyes then, finally allowing sleep to begin to claim her.

_I hope the desert swallows me whole_

* * *

><p><strong>UPDATE: Alright fuckers, you win. I couldn't let it die out completely, but consider this story 99% abandoned because it is taking a back seat to everything else.<strong>


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